THE BONDING
by PanicButton
Summary: Sequel the The Candy Suckers...Reid/OMC/etc etc as always. When a someone is brought in to the local PD things soon become confusing as lost memories begin to drift back. Some language and Slash expected
1. Chapter 1

THE BONDING

**a/n: this is a follow up from THE CANDY SUCKERS....might be best you read that first if you've not already. Thank you!!!! Pb**

**_The existence of forgetting has never been proved: We only know that some things don't come to mind when we want them. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche_**

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That is why I spend the next I don't know how long drinking myself back into oblivion and taking any drug I can get my hands on. The beauty of this place is that my ability to metabolise all the crap in my system doesn't work. I can feel the alcohol taking effect. I can feel powders and liquids rushing through my brain and I can feel that dead empty loss I am feeling. I don't often get the pleasure to actually feel things. Not physically and not emotionally, but here in my "room" somewhere in this dark place I can take it all on and think properly probably for the first time in decades. Maybe longer. Time has a funny way of running forwards too fast and then slipping back again. Memories too, they fade. There is too much to remember and so it just drifts away like the smoke from this thing I'm smoking right now.

I have a headache. Now I do know all about those. I live almost constantly with headaches and nose bleeds, but that was a small price to pay to be able to do what I was; whatever that was. I'm not sure I remember too well now. I remember his smell. I remember the feel of him under my hands. I remember the way he walked and those special little noises, but I'll be damned if I can remember what he looked like. Tall I think. Taller than me and skinny, but the face it just a blur of hundreds of blokes I've had and used and discarded. He had been special though. I thought would remember more, but even the sound of his voice has gone now and those special little things; all drifting from my mind ready to fill with some new slut.

They come in occasionally and we have a party, if you want to call it that. More of an orgy really, but I don't enjoy it. I have no control over what happens. I am the dog. I am the bit of meat they come looking for to use and discard and this is something I need to change. I need to talk to them. I am serving no purpose here drinking and getting high. I need to fill that empty place inside me. I need to fill someone else's empty place inside them, but not here. I need to go back down. I need to do what I enjoy. I need also to talk to the other team. Maybe they will have me back now?

So I get up and I walk away from my room. I walk in a random direction. It really doesn't matter as all directions lead you back to the same place in the end. At first it is just complete absolute darkness. There is nothing, but slowly the light appears around me. They know I am here. They know I am coming and so I keep walking.

'What do you want?'

The voice echoes around me from an unknown source.

'To go back.' I tell them as I peer out into the inky black.

'To do what?'

That is a very good question. 'To collect for you.'

'You are a fuck up Flanders. Go back to your room, when we have something for you we will send for you.'

'I can just go back and collect. I've never failed you there.' I don't actually know if I have or not to he honest. And honesty is not something which comes naturally to me.

'We have collectors. You're not needed. We've removed your bonds. There is no reason why we would choose you over someone who can do a job and not continually come to us complaining we changed the rules.'

I frown at the darkness and have to think about that one. 'But no one collects with the style I have.' More bullshit.

'You are begging to be returned? You have come here to ask for forgiveness?' Forgiveness? I have no bloody idea what they are talking about now.

'Sure. I'm err…I'm sorry?' I don't think I've ever used that word before and it has a surprising result.

'You will have to be careful Flanders. No more bonding. No more playing for the other side and you will find your abilities sorely reduced until you prove yourself to be of worth.'

'So I just collect? Nothing else? That's it?'

Yu hu seems that was it.

And another bit of filth is ejected and lands in the gutters of some dark back street somewhere.

-o-o-o-

The next few days I spend deciding what the hell I'm going to do. I know this place. I can find my way around but I don't know why I know it. Still I am trying to pull up the face or name of that person I miss so damned much and still it is evading me. There are two things I have to do. I have to get money and I have to collect. Just call me the grim reaper cos that is what I will be doing. Reaping souls for them up there, or down there, wherever they are, but I have to be careful. I don't seem to be able to heal like I could before. I need to earn back the rights I had before and it's going to be a very long and tedious process.

Money is easy to come by. People are stupid and I take up my old hobby of helping myself to wallets. A few hours work every other day will see me through easily enough. It won't afford me somewhere to live though, so I'm taking up squatters rights in a room which is part of an abandoned apartment building. The other stuff I make sure I do away from home. You should never hunt or shit on your own doorstep.

I start off with one a night. Easy pickings firstly out in the park. Rent boys and slags all hang out there and one or two going missing doesn't raise alarms right away. Then I move to the back alley ways and side streets and offer up some hobos and other worthless bastards and the more I do this the more I resent it. This isn't what I should be doing. I should be doing this for fun, not so I can stay here and try to remember what they've made me forget. The first few get broken necks. Then I get pissed off and I do a bit more and when no one is looking I'll use them totally afterwards. Which of course is every time cos no one's going to be looking now are they? Right, I don't want to catch something. I do have to be more careful now but condoms are just not what Floyd does, so yeah, I need to watch what I screw.

So I bagged someone last night and now I want something to eat. This is another thing I've noticed. I need to eat. I get hungry and so I am watching and waiting for the perfect victim.

Here in the mall is the best place. Very busy and lots of money changing hands. I've been here a few times. There is somewhere to get food too and it's dry and reasonably warm and the added advantage that I can disappear into the crowds quickly. I am pissed off today though. My heart is really not in it. I'm doing this to shut up the strange noises coming from my stomach. I would rather go home and sleep. Yes sleep. I need to sleep too. So I am tired and hungry and fed up with not having a goal other than pleasing them. I walk around for a while. I sit on a bench for a little while. I fiddle with things in my pockets and then I decide to get some cash then food and then go home.

I was sloppy. I was stupid. The guy is walking in my direction but looking in the store windows. I walk over towards him and bump into him and slide my hand to where I can see the bulge of a wallet.

As I said I was sloppy. I wasn't paying attention to my task and that is what got me into somewhat of a mess. He knew what I had done and as I spun and started to leg it he was shouting and people moved out of the way for me.

Most people moved out of the way. There always has to be that one fucker who thinks he is some kind of a damned hero. A tackle to my back and legs and the two of us are sliding across the mall's shiny floor. I feel my head crack as we go down and the wallet flies from my hands and suddenly there I am with someone sitting on me and a circle of people standing around looking.

OK…yes I could just kick him off and kill a few hundred locals, but that really isn't going to help my situation.

'Get the fuck off me you bastard!'

Shouting that didn't have an effect and so I lie there and waited. He has his wallet back. No need really for all this damned fuss, but they can't fucking leave it be can they? Can't they see I'm sleeping rough? Can't they see I'm down on my luck? Bollocks to them all. I'm pulled to my feet by Mall Security, who I spit at and curse at, but there are four of them and one of me and my hands are forced behind my back and cuffed in freaking plastic crap and they keep me there until the cops arrive.

The local PD is a shit hole. My squat is better decorated, but I don't tell them this right now. They empty my pockets and I'm taken to an interview room. Though what they want to interview me about I'm not sure. At least they remove the bloody cuffs which have been digging into my wrists. They leave me there alone for fucking ages. I pace and I kick things in anger. I tell them I need a coffee. I demand my smokes and nothing happens for bloody ever. There is no clock in here to keep people from knowing how long they have been detained for. One fucking wallet. That was all. What the hell are they keeping me all this time for?

Finally someone walks in.

'Sit down.' I am told

And I do cos there is nothing else really to do.

They ask me my name and I just stare at them and don't answer. They ask me for my address and I raise an eyebrow.

'Look at me. Do I look like I have a fucking address?' He is recording this but making notes too. 'What are you writing?' But he doesn't answer me. Then he does something which puts everything into a brand new focus. He places a cell phone in an evidence bag and a small female's wallet also in an evidence bag, on the table. Err the wallet being small not the female. Though she was small too...that's not what I meant.

'Seen these before?' He asks me.

And yes I've seen them before. I took them off my last victim. So I shake my head. 'Nope.'

'Then explain how your finger prints are all over them.'

I lick my lips and look at the things then back at the suit sitting the other side of the table. 'I dunno.' I tell him.

'You don't know how the property of a violent rape and murder happened to find its way into your pocket?'

And now would be a good time for the cavalry. 'Someone must have put it there.'

'With your finger prints all over them?'

'How the hell should I know? Look I pick pockets. You got me on that, but I never killed and raped no chic.'

-o-o-o-

'That's him?' Morgan sounded almost disappointed and ran his hands over his head. I look at Morgan for a second and then back through the window at the man they arrested for picking a pocket in the mall. We'd been looking for a break in the case since it was first brought to our attention and though I am glad at last there is someone we can talk to, I'm not happy that someone else had to die for us to get this opportunity.

He's not what we expected. He's younger and not as well groomed as we had profiled. Actually nothing about him seemed to fit the profile and that bothers me.

'I'll go and talk to him.' And I see Derek nod. 'Alone to start with.'

'I'll be right here.' He responds as the officer lets me into the room.

He looks up at me and frowns. I don't like his self confidence. I don't like the way he is looking me directly in the eye. I don't like anything about him. I introduce myself and sit down. All the while I know his eyes are locked on mine and I look for a reaction when I say who I am, but there is nothing there. No surprise. No worry. Nothing. He doesn't even blink.

'We don't have your name recorded.' I open with. Something easy. Something I might get a reply to.

'I've not given it.'

He is still staring at me. His hands are resting on the table and as I sit he removes them and folds his arms. I know that a lawyer has been offered and I know he has refused and so I carry on.

'It will be useful for our records if we have a name.'

He nods but doesn't answer.

'I have a warrant here.' And I pull it out of my pocket. 'But it would look better for you if you will do this without the need.'

'Warrant for what exactly?'

His eyes are still locked on mine and his face seems horribly familiar. I just can't place it. I put a folder on the table and slide it over to him. 'Please have a look. Tell me if you recognise any of these people.' I watch carefully as his eyes finally leave mine and he looks down at the folder. He opens it and picks up the photographs of the fifteen victims we have so far. Still there is no reaction on his face and this is in a way good. I would expect someone who is just a common pick pocket to be repulsed by what he is looking at, but he doesn't react.

'I don't know. It's kinda hard to tell.' He finally says and closed the pictures away inside the folder again. 'But I am curious as to why you'd think a bloody pick pocket would know a load of dead people.'

And something somewhere makes my stomach twist in alarm. The accent maybe? The use of language. I push a bit further so I can hear that voice again. There is something about it. Something which should belong in a nightmare.

'Does the pickpocket have a name?' I place my hand over the folder and see him watch me. He is looking at my hand as though he is expecting something to happen.

'Flanders.' He says.

And again my head begins to pound. I need to get out of this room. As I stand I look at him sitting there looking so smug. 'I will be back.'

'You haven't said what the warrant is for.' I walk towards the door. 'How's Sam doing?' I place my hand on the door handle. 'Agent Aaron Hotchner? How's my boy?' And I am out and slamming the door behind me and Derek's hand is on my shoulder.

'How the hell does that scum know you?' He asks.

'I don't know, but I'm going to find out. I need to talk to Sam.' I run my fingers through my hair in a panic. The guy we have been looking for knows me and knows of Sam and claims to have the same last name. I look back through the window at him. 'Surely not.' I sigh.

'What is it Hotch?'

'Look at him. His hair. The way he is sitting. Everything about him…his speech patterns.'

'You think he is related to Sam?'

I don't know what to think, but I need Sam brought here now. Or do I need him as far away as possible?

'We need a blood sample, Derek make sure he gives one. Whoever raped all those people left traces behind each time. If they match him then we have our man.'

Morgan nods and rushes off in one direction while I stand at the window and look at Flanders. I pull my phone from my pocket and make a call. I take some deep breaths and slide my hands into my pants pockets. The name Flanders again. This is the third time it has come up in the past few weeks.

Sam. Sam is a sixteen year old boy I have taken in to my life in an attempt the straighten him out. It's not been an easy task so far. He was living rough and for some reason I'm not sure about now I gave him a home. His last name is Flanders. Also the last name of the person who seems to be Reid's next of kin. The name of the person preventing us from visiting him. Not that he'd know we were there. He's been on life support since the accident. He has no brain activity. Reid is dead but being kept alive by machines on the word of someone called Flanders. We are refused access. He is allowed no visitors and I thought it a strange co-incidence that both Sam and this other person had the same last name, but here it is again. I need to talk to him, but I will wait for the guys from the lab to turn up so we can take blood from this person.

-o-o-o-

So I pace some more again. They didn't tell me what the warrant was for but I'm taking a wild guess that it's for DNA or something, which is fine. I don't mind that too much. Blood is a wonderful thing. I need a smoke. I need a coffee and I need to sleep and maybe eat something.

When the door opens again it's Hotchner. Now; I know this guy but I don't know why I know him yet. It will come to me though. If I know his name then I will eventually get the trail right back to how I know him. A Fed. I keep that going over in my head. Why the hell would I know a Fed and why am I not feeling too surprised that I know him? Sam. I know he has Sam. I remember Sam. He is my spawn. That's the connection, but why does he have Sam? I need to talk to the boy. He will fill me in with the lost bits, but that's going to have to wait. They want blood as I thought they would.

'Roll up the sleeve on your left arm please.' Some technician is saying to me as Hotchner sits back down again and now it is his turn to stare at me.

'This is what the warrant was for?' I ask and just get a nod as a reply. I don't resist. I roll up my sleeve and the technician just stands there for a few seconds looking at me. I look back then down at my arm. 'Track marks.' I say. 'I'm sure you've seen them before.' He doesn't talk to me but says more into the air…

'This might sting.'

'Don't worry about it. I'm not afraid of a little prick.' And I look at Hotchner as I say this. He is quick. Gets what he needs and leaves and as he leaves someone else enters and I know this person too. This person though makes the hair stand up on the back of my neck.

'Agent Derek Morgan.' I say and sometimes I should keep my mouth shut, but I see the looks between the two men. A look of puzzlement maybe? He doesn't say anything. I move my eyes from him and back to Hotchner who I feel a bit more comfortable talking to.

'So now what do you want?' I ask.

'How did you come by the wallet and cell phone belonging to a murder victim?' He pushes a picture of the girl across the table for me to look at. I glance down at it and them I look up at Hotchner again. 'Your finger prints are on it.'

'I expect they are. I handled them. They would be on it.' I tell him. Oh I'm getting pissed off with this routine now.

'Then care to explain how they found their way into your pocket?'

'I put them there.'

'You said earlier that you'd not seen them before.'

'I lied.'

'How did you get these items? They belong to her. To Lucy Banks. Why did you have them?'

'Look, you have me for picking a pocket. Are you going to charge me for that or not? Cos I didn't fucking kill anyone.'

'The wallet and cell phone first. We need to talk about that a bit more.'

Morgan is standing next to Hotchner watching me.

'I was given them.'

'Who gave them to you?'

'I dunno. Didn't get a name.'

'Why would a stranger give you those items?'

'Payment. I'm not too expensive when I'm hungry.'

'Payment?' Morgan's voice.

'For a blow job. He wanted to and I needed money. I whored myself. Are you happy now?' Sort of a lie, but a very believable one. The only part of that which wasn't true was I give my self for free. I'm no whore. I'd never degrade myself like that, but that's fine. I will be out of here soon.

'We need your full name.' Hotchner again.

'Flanders. Floyd Flanders Franks.'

And well, I've never had quite that reaction to my name before. Morgan is going for the door with Hotchner hot on his heels like I just announced I was the second coming. Which I am. HAHA! Well not second, more like fifth or sixth. Unless we are talking about something else, but either way I am left on my own again and the door is slammed behind me.

-o-o-o-

'What the hell is going on?' I look at Hotch who has started pacing the corridor.

'I don't know, but the more that man says the more I am feeling that this is not a co-incidence. That man knows things. He knows us and it looks like he knows Reid.

'That creature in there cannot be Reid's next of kin. There's been a mistake. If he is picking pockets and prostituting himself for cash how in hell's name is he paying for Reid's medical bill?'

'The DNA results will tell us more. We will have something to hold him on, but as it is now all we have is a pickpocket who knows more than he should. We will have to charge him with something soon.'

'He's not asked to go yet. He gave up his blood willingly enough. None of this fits Hotch and I have a strong feeling I know him from somewhere. I know his voice and his posturing. I even know that damned smell. Where have I seen that sonofabitch before?' I go back and look through the window at the guy sitting rocking slowly on his chair. Too calm. Not a note of panic in him. Something is very wrong and it has something to do with Reid.

* * *

**a/n: Shall I continue?**


	2. Chapter 2 Pictures

Pictures

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I'm taken into an interview room sort of place with a computer screen thing on the wall. I'm told to wait. I'm not happy so when Aaron comes in I let him know.

'I've not fucking done anything wrong! Why the hell am I here? You pulled me out of math. They're all gonna be bloody asking questions now. I thought you wanted me to behave! Well I'm doing my fucking best. You have no damned proof! Why couldn't you wait 'til I get home like all normal fucking parents do when they want to give a five hour bloody lecture? You keep on and bloody on at me non stop and I can't keep up with you anymore. I can't have my music on loud. I can't have people round when I want. I can't go out after a certain time and I'm doing everything you bloody well ask. It was only a small bloody drink! No need to get me pulled out of class cos I helped my self to your fucking precious whiskey and that other thing, well you can't prove it was me!'

'Sam be quiet for a minute. You're not in trouble. At least you weren't.'

'Then why the hell am I here! Why did bloody cops come to the school and get me?'

I am pacing the room and about to explode.

'Calm down. I want you to look at something.'

I stop pacing and turn to look at him. Does he know? I thought he didn't. Maybe he has known all along. Crap. I suddenly need a smoke and a drink and something nice to put up my nose or directly into my blood. Damn him. Damn them all. I fold my arms defensively around myself and stand as still as I can for five seconds. Then I start pacing again. 'What – what do you want me to look at?'

He walks over to the computer screen thing and turns it on. It flickers and then comes to life. It's a grey fuzzy screen now instead of a blank one.

'I need you to look at this security footage and tell me if you recognise this person.' He points the remote control at the screen and a room appears. There is someone in the room but he has his back to me. Not that it matters, cos I know who it is straight away. Not that I'm going to admit that and so I just stand and watch as Floyd paces, much like I was and as he turns I see his face. It's my dad.

'That person?' I ask as I carry on watching. 'Why? What did he do?'

'That doesn't matter, I just need to know if you have seen him before. Hanging around the house. At the school maybe?'

They don't know who he is, but they've brought me here to look at him. 'Why do you think I know him?' I walk forward to get a closer look. He looks like shit. I've seen him looking a lot better than this. His time at "home" obviously wasn't a jolly fun filled one.

'The reason I'm asking Sam, is because he knows you.'

I look at Aaron then back at dad. 'He knows me? How does he know me?' I have to be careful what I say and keeping words locked in my brain and not flying out of my mouth is my weakness.

'He knew you lived with me.'

I walk closer to the screen. It looks like a live feed and I wonder if he knows I'm watching. He can sometimes know things like that.

'Lots of people do. Why is he special?'

'So you've not seen him before? Think carefully Sam. What about before you came to live with me? In you past. Could he be from there somewhere?'

I am close enough to reach out and touch him now and it's a hard job not to.

'I don't know him.' I say. 'I think I would remember someone who looks like that.' Seeing as he looks like me, but I manage not to say that bit. 'So I'm not in trouble?' I touch the scar on my neck which is burning today and this is why. Trouble is brewing. I want to tell Aaron to keep away from him. To stay clear. To let him go and forget he ever saw him, but he'd ask too many questions and I might forget my place and answer some of them.

Hotchner puts the screen on freeze and it's a profile of his face and I am just standing there stupidly staring at it. I want to go and talk to him. I want to say 'hi' to him, but I can't. I don't know why he is here.

'Sam, think about before you came to stay with me. Was he someone you knew from the streets? A drug dealer? Rent boy? Anyone you might have come across before.'

And I resent that comment highly. 'You think that's all I used to do isn't it? Just fuck and get high. You really don't know me do you Aaron?'

He shakes his head and walks over to. 'We are still in the process of getting to know each other Sam. Please, this really is important.'

'I don't bloody care and if I did know him I'm not telling you. Why the hell would I? What do I get in exchange?' Shit…does that make it sound like I do know him? I start pacing again.

Aaron sighs and gives me the remote control thing. 'Sit here and look at it. Look at it forwards and backwards. You must have seen him if he knows you. Just sit and watch it and think and later on I will talk to you about the alcohol and whatever it is you've taken today.'

I snatch the thing from his hand and throw my self down into a chair. 'Whatever.' I snap at him and click the play button again.

-o-o-o-

We've been watching him through the window now for about an hour. I leave Derek outside again and now I've talked to Sam I will have another word with Flanders. I need to know his connection with Spencer. I need to know what the hell is going on here and we need the test results back stat. I ask Derek to chase that up and enter the room again.

He watches me enter but doesn't say anything.

'I have some more questions to ask you.' I tell him and sit down in the chair the other side of the table. He watches me but doesn't say anything. 'How do you know Reid?' And his expression changes very slightly. A small crease forms between his eyes and he produces the smallest of frowns.

'Who?'

'You know who I am talking about and I need to know how you know him and why you are doing what you are.'

'I have no idea what you are going on about. Agent Aaron Hotchner, do you like me?'

I am now the one trying not to frown, but I am slightly thrown by the question. 'No, actually I don't much like you Flanders. How do you know Reid?'

'Because you looked stressed. What happened?' He stands up and walks around the table. I am standing faster than it takes him to reach me. 'It's ok. I was just going to massage your shoulders. You need to learn to relax.'

'Go and sit down and answer my question.' His hand moves up and he tries to place it on my chest, but I am back out of his reach before he can make contact. 'If you don't go and sit down I will have you cuffed to the table.'

'For lifting a wallet? First offence? Isn't that rather going over board? But he takes a step back from me. 'I'm sure you'd like me if you got to know me better. After all you don't dislike Sam do you?'

'Sit down Flanders.'

But he stands there with his hands at his side watching me. 'What is it you want from me? This is not about the wallet issue. You have something else you think you have on me?'

'We are awaiting lab results.'

'Ah I see. You are trying to pin the murders and rapes on me cos I look like that sort?'

I move around the table but keep talking. 'Murders and rapes.' I repeat his words. 'You always put it in that order.'

'Well that would seem the most likely to me. If I was going to rape someone, and I do say "if" then I would do it in that order. Especially if it's a girly. I don't normally touch them you see. I am strictly an arse guy. And so apart from you wanting me to be a murderer what else are you keeping me here for? I am tired and I am hungry. Can you at least get me something to eat?'

He takes a step towards me. 'How do you know Sam?'

'Well that is a long story and one I'm not prepared to go into right now.'

'How do you know Reid?'

He is smiling as he steps towards me again. 'You have lovely hair.' And suddenly he is in front of me reaching up to touch me.

'Get back and sit down! I'm not here to play games with you.'

He moves his hand back down again and looks over at the chair. 'I would rather stand thank you. You should take your jacket off and relax. I'm not going to do anything. Much as I'd like to.'

'How do you know Reid?' I repeat.

'I don't sodding know anyone called Reid! I told you I don't know anyone called Reid. You want me to write it down for you so you don't forget?'

I'm watching him as I talk. 'How do you know me?'

And I see that frown again. 'I don't actually know you. I don't think. I just know some things is all and if you are so insistent that I know Reid why not bring him here for me to see.' I don't get a chance to answer as the door opens and Morgan stands there with a sheet of paper in his hand.

'A minute?' He asks and I leave the room again. A police officer is standing outside the room so I ask him to go and get a sandwich and coffee for Flanders and then look at Morgan.

'The lab results?'

'You won't like it.' And he hands me the bit of paper.

I look at it. I turn the paper over. I look at it again and then walk so I can look through the window at our captive. 'This cant be right.' I say at no one in particular. 'They have double checked this?'

'I asked them the same. They've checked and double checked. He's not our man.'

'Then who the hell is he? Apart from a pick pocket who seems to have a bit to much information.'

'Undercover cop?'

'Picking pockets?'

'I don't know Hotch. It all just feels wrong. I just know that we cant keep him here now. Not with those results.'

I nod slowly and continue to watch. The police officer has returned with coffee and sandwich which he takes in an places on the table. There seems to be no exchange of words between them and he leaves with no problems or interaction. It is almost as though the man only comes to life if I am talking to him.

'We need to find out how he knows Reid. Get a picture of him, I want to see if I can get a reaction.'

'Picture?' Morgan is looking through the window with me.

'I want a file of photos of Reid. As he is now. At the scene of the accident and before all this happened. I am going to get a damned reaction out of him.'

I pull my phone from my pocket as Morgan rushes away once more and I call Garcia.

'I need you to pull up all you have on Floyd Flanders Franks.'

'_Sir I've already done that. I would send it over but there is nothing to send. No previous convictions…no record actually that he has even been born. No birth records…no employment, no tax, a big blank nothing. The only thing there is, is what we already know. Someone with the same name is paying for Reid's medical bill via a numbered account. It cant be traced back to the guy you have in there sir, and Reid's next of kin has the same name. That is all there is. According to records Floyd Flanders Franks doesn't exist.'_

I thank Garcia and turn once more to look though the window. He has pulled the sandwich apart and has made little piles out of the different contents of a chicken salad sandwich. Each piece in its own separate area. He is sitting back just looking at it now. I would just put this down to yet another oddity but I know better. Something inside me is causing all sorts of alarm bells to ring and I don't know why. Apart from him knowing a bit to much information, which in it self isn't a crime. A stalker of some kind, but why? Morgan's suggestion that he is undercover is a possibility, but I still can't see why he would act the way he does. Surely he would have insisted we contact whoever is in charge and no one has come screaming to us for arresting the wrong man. The wrong man with no past.

-o-o-o-

I visit as often as I can. I have lost a lot of contact with the team since the birth of my baby but I feel a strange need to come and see Spence. Will doesn't mind. He understands. So here I am once more standing at the window looking in at Spence being kept alive by machines. I've asked and begged them to let me in to see him, but they have strict instructions that he's not allowed visitors. I bring in books and ask them to read to him, but I don't think they bother. I watch today as they turn him and massage him with creams and oils to stop the sores he is getting from becoming infected. I want to go in and help. I ask again and once more I am told that he's not permitted visitors. So I stand with my hands against the glass wall and watch. At least they do that much for me. They open the blinds so I can see in. It's not much, but all they can do. I even tried the "I am an FBI agent and I need to talk to him" routine and was told "When he wakes up we will let the FBI know." And that was it. He'll not wake up though and I don't know why this next of kin person is keeping him like this yet failing to visit himself. I sip on my coffee and watch as the staff leave his room and actually lock the door behind them. He must be so afraid and lonely. I need to see him. But for now this is all. The hissing of the machines and the bleeping is all that is left of Spencer.

-o-o-o-

I join Hotch for this part of the interview. I have the pile of photos with me. I want to see as much as he does what his reaction will be to the pictures.

He is sitting there looking at the bits of food, but I cant tell if he has eaten any of it. The plastic coffee mug is empty and standing right on the edge of the table.

'Something wrong with the food Flanders?' I ask him.

'Nu hu. The food is fine. What do you want now?'

I sit down and Hotch stands near me. We want to be able to see his reaction to the pictures properly.

'I want you too look through these pictures and tell me if you know this person.'

I slide the folder over the table towards him and he moves the broken sandwich to the side, but he doesn't touch the folder. 'More dead people?' He asks Hotch the question.

'Just look at it.' I reply

He slides it closer and opens it. I see a frown as he slowly sifts though the pictures but nothing else. 'This is Reid?' He closes the folder and looks up at Hotch.

'Just answer the question.' I say, but he keeps his eyes locked on Hotch.

'I'm not going to talk to him, so he may as well leave.' He pushes the folder back towards me.

'You have a problem with me?' I ask in a not to friendly manner.

Hotch talks now. 'Just answer the question Flanders. Do you know that man?'

'The bloke in those pictures? No I don't know him. Am I meant to know him? He doesn't look too well though. Is that life support he is on there? Nasty. You should turn the machines off. No point in keeping someone alive if they're that broken.'

I stand up ready to kill the man but a hand on my shoulder from Hotch stops me from grabbing the scum bag by the neck and smacking him into next week. I leave the room and let Hotch carry on from here. There is something vile about that man and if I stay in there much longer I would have to be dragged off him. I don't like what is happening here. He is distracting us from the case we are on. He's not our man. We need to keep looking and not be put off by Flanders. I walk down the corridor and into the room we are using and slam the door behind me.

-o-o-o-

'So are you going to charge me with anything?'

I look into Hotchner's eyes still searching for that thing I know is there. He is staring right back at me and I don't like that. I don't like being looked at like that. I don't like the way he is trying to read me and I don't think he likes the way I am trying to read him.

'We need a description of the person you got the victims belongings from.'

I stand up and start pacing the room again. 'I don't remember too well. About five six average build. Very good mouth and he deep throated me no problem. Short hair. It was dark. I didn't really get to see his face.' I pause and turn to face him. 'Maybe that is where I know you from. Do you give blow jobs in dark alley ways Agent Aaron Hotchner?'

'I don't know what you think your game is but it's not going to work on me. Sit down.'

I shake my head slowly. 'Charge me with the wallet fiasco then let me go for fucks sake. I don't have the information you are looking for. I didn't kill or rape anyone and I don't know who that person is in the photos. You have the wrong man and you bloody well know it. You've known it for a while now, so release me and get on with your job. I believe you have a murderer to look for and all the time you have me here someone is out there killing sweet innocent whores and junkies. I would say you should be looking for a cleaner and I don't fit that profile and you bloody well know that too. The blood test results didn't match did they? I know they didn't because it wasn't me. Now if that is all.'

-o-o-o-

So I am here outside the local PD I'd been dragged into. I have a date to return which I have no intention of keeping and I think they are well aware of that but I had become a distraction to them. I need to think now. I know those pictures were of Reid. I know they think I know him and I am trying to pull that face over the memories of that special person I knew. I'm not sure though. Smell is far better stimuli. I need to locate him. I know he is in a hospital. I know he is probably FBI also. I know he would be in the best facility available and I know I have some sort of connection to him. I'm just not certain what that is. I need to see him in the flesh and touch him and smell him. The way I did Hotchner, because whatever went on between the two of us in the past is still there in the back of my mind. I just don't know what that is yet.

Once again I have no money. I have no way to get any except to help myself and really I'm too tired now to do that and so I stand and I try to think. I know this place. I know this city well from some other time and so I must know where the hospitals are located. I just have to think. I walk until I find and bench and I sit. I put my elbows on my knees and my head in my hands and I close my eyes and I think. Where the hell do the FBI sent their guys? Where would this Reid person be?

I decide to just walk. I will end up in the right place if I just walk. I will get pulled in the right direction if this person is who I think it might be. If he was the one I had bonded to then I will find him. I just need to concentrate on those pictures of him with those machines and I will be in the right place eventually.

It was a long damned walk but here I am looking at a hospital entrance. It's big. It's impressive, but I don't know if he is there. I don't know his smell yet. I have nothing to home in on. When I find him, if it is him and if I like the look of him, I might be able to help, but for now I will just stand here and take in the vibes of the place. Try to get a feel for what is going on inside. I pull up in my mind the pictures of him again and attempt to work out if he is there, but I can't damned well do it and so that is why I am leaning on the wall in the parking lot when I see her. Blond hair bobbing. Her smile too big. My heart thumps in my chest but not with lust at seeing such a beauty but because I know who that is. Bloody JJ. What the hell is she doing back. How many times do I have to kill the same bitch? She was always after my boy. I know that much. Her hands touching him and wanting him. I am in the right place then. She has been visiting this Reid person. I watch her cautiously unsure if she will know who I am, but she bounces right by me and so I take this chance and follow her. She has a silver SUV parked up and as she fumbles in her bag to find the keys I walk up behind her.

'Hi JJ.' I say all happy and friendly like.

She spins around still smiling, but the smile doesn't last long. 'What the hell?'

That was the last thing she said. Once again I've snapped that pretty little neck. A bit more weight on her than she used to carry but it didn't effect my handiwork. I let her and her oversized pink bag drop to the floor then I give her some friendly kicks until she is under the vehicle.

Now to go and find Reid.

* * *


	3. Chapter 3 The Visit

The Visit

**A/N: a bit of SLASH AND LANGUAGE.**

* * *

We seem to have good days and bad. Today is a bad one. I maybe should have gone to the school and collected him myself but that wasn't possible and it's too late to change that now, but that seems to have upset him. More that you would think it would.

It starts with door slamming. Then loud music, which I decide to ignore and then I get the smell of smoke as I walk down the corridor towards the bathroom. There are many things I don't like Sam doing. That I try to control, and smoking in his room is one of them. I cant change this teenager over night, but we can try to make reasonable adjustments and this is one he seems to have a problem with. I knock on his door and wait, but if he can hear me over the racket coming from the other side is unknown.

'Sam!' I call out to him and knock louder. A few minutes it takes, but that is a while when it is just a kid in a bedroom I need to talk to, but finally he opens the door and stands there in a fog a smoke with a strange look on his face. I know what he has been doing and I pull him by his dungaree straps away from the door. 'Get downstairs.' I snap at him. I can see the noxious thing burning between his fingers but I still want to check he's not set his room alight. A minute later I am down in the lounge where he has already helped himself to a drink of the finest amber liquid. 'If there is a problem you need to talk to me.' I tell him. I walk over to him slowly. I know how explosive his temper is. 'If you want a drink you must ask and you can only smoke downstairs. We have talked about this. I thought you understood my reasons.'

'You said we had pizza for dinner.'

'That is the reason you were smoking and ….that is why you were smoking in your room?'

He spins on me and I can see that look on his face. I'm going to have a battle on my hands I can tell. 'No that's not why I was smoking in my room. I was up there because I didn't want to be around you. You try to control everything I fucking well do then you trample over it all. I don't bloody believe you had me pulled out of math to look at some freak on a monitor. Why did you do that? Why did you have to mess everything up? You do it all the bloody time. You say you trust me. I get my grades. I do what you ask of me then you shit all over me not even bloody well thinking how that is going to look when I go back to class tomorrow. All the fucking questions I'll get asked and the pushing and taunting and crap that goes with it and you don't want me to retaliate and well I wont. I fucking well put up with it, but you said we were having pizza and that it is a fucking lasagne you have in the oven. I was looking forward to pizza. But you get all you want and what do I get back in return? I get my music turned off, I get you nagging me about smoking, I get you moaning on at me about your whiskey, I get fucking lasagne!'

He takes a breath and so I take the chance to say something.

'This is all about a pizza?' though I know it's not.

'No. This is about your stinking fucking rules. Always rules not to do something I love to do and it's doing my head in. You offered me this place to stay. You offered me warmth and shelter and food, but I'm not allowed to go out in the evenings and I'm not allowed to bring people back. I'm not allowed to mix outside of school with the very people you are saying I should be befriending.'

'The few people you did bring home, Sam, were much older than you and were going to your room to do drugs. I'm not having that in my home.'

He shrugs and walks to the couch where he throws himself down and pulls his booted feet up onto the cream coloured leather. I want to tell him to get his feet down, but maybe now isn't the right time.

'That doesn't explain the distinct lack of pizza in the house.'

He is calming down a bit now. 'I need you to extra vigilant at school and when you are waiting for the bus. I need you to be aware that the person I showed you knows you. I don't want you to get hurt. I'm worried.'

He takes a deep drag of the disgusting thing he is smoking and looks over at me. 'I've never seen him before. I told you that.'

'And I am telling you that this sort of person will maybe not be obvious. Now you know what he looks like be aware.'

He nods and drops the dog end into and ash tray. That at least I have managed to train him to do. I know why he likes pizza. Sam has a problem using utensils. He would rather eat finger food and after a day where his and my stress levels have reached a peak then maybe a fight getting him to use a fork to eat with is a step too far.

-o-o-o-

As soon as I step in the doorway I know I am definitely in the right place. I can feel a strange buzzing in my head as I walk over to the elevators. I hit the call button and stand and wait. A few other people join me there but they don't seem to want to stand too close to me. Can't think why. Maybe it's the smell, or the looks of "touch me and die" I am giving them. The elevator doors ping and I step in and punch the button for the fifth floor. I don't know why I choose that number. It just feels right. Then because I am a complete bastard I stand in front of the panel and turn to face the others in the car. Will someone ask me to move so they can press the button they want? Doesn't look like it, so it looks like we are all going to for a trip to number five. They are trying not to look at me and I do really wonder what is so offensive about my appearance. It's not like I am covered in blood. Am I? I check. Nope, no blood. The ride is smooth. The elevator ride that is and when it judders and stops again I am half expecting everyone to run screaming through the now opening doors, but they just stand there stupidly waiting for me to get out. Shall I just stay here? I could just stay here and make life miserable for them for a while, but I don't. I want to see who this person is I'm being pulled towards. I step out and hear a collective sigh from the people behind me.

Fuckers.

I make my way to the sign which says it's a men's room and go to check what it is about be which seems to be repelling people today. I'm meant to be the irresistible god of sex…not turning people off me like this.

The mirror. Well. What can I say? They say the mirror never lies and it must be true. I can't see what is so bloody wrong with me today. My hair is ok if just a bit on the dirty side. My face, ah, well a wash wouldn't go amiss and I maybe don't look very well. Darkness is creeping under my eyes and my skin is a bit on the grey and dead side, but a bit of water will sort that all out. Once I feel a bit more refreshed I light up. I know it's no smoking in hospitals but I think I am going to need to do this to get by hospital administration and the cotton candy smiles of the young girls who will be working up here. I few deep drags and I drop the rest in the sink and turn on the tap again.

I am ready to meet him. This Reid person. I am ready to see what this is all about.

The corridor has candy stripers wandering down it and a fist full of proper nursing staff and what looks to be a doctor or two. A sigh and I am off. Room ten. Something inside me is telling me to go to room ten.

'Excuse me sir, can I help you?' A girly in stripes.

'No.' I tell her and keep walking my mind fixed firmly on that number ten. I walk by the reception desk and I can see the door I need. The room is one of those with the big glass walls to it so I pull up and just stand looking. The blinds are partially open, so I can't really see much, but I can see enough to know that my instincts were correct. I place the palms of my hands on the glass and whisper in a sigh. 'Who the fuck are you?' My hand now reaches for the door handle just as someone speaks to me again.

'I'm sorry sir. He isn't allowed visitors. Would you like to go to reception and leave your name?' I turn to the bloke there. A male nurse holding a wad of papers in his hand.

'Leave my name?'

'Yes sir at reception.' And he half turns and points at the desk I walked passed.

'I know what the fucking reception looks like.' I snap at him and slap the papers from his hand. 'Looks like you dropped something mate.' I say. I take a few steps away as he frowns at me then bends down to pick the stuff up. White trousers. Nice. He has a nice arse, but I don't have time for that now. I walk to the desk and look at the stuffy over made up middle aged woman sitting the other side.

'I'm here to see Reid.' I tell her.

'Oh sorry sir. Dr Reid isn't allowed visitors.'

Doctor Reid? The buzzing gets louder. 'I erm.' I put a hand over my ear to try to stop the noise. 'I need to give you my name?' Something is wrong. I feel horribly light headed and I can feel the coffee I had at the precinct trying to work its way up again. I can't think straight. They are trying to confuse me. They are trying to stop me. 'Fuck.' I mutter as she passes me a form to fill in. 'What the bloody hell is that?' I push it back.

'A form to fill in sir. So we know who has been visiting.'

'I'm not visiting yet am I?' I snarl at her. 'So I'm not filling in your fucking form. Let me in to see Reid.'

'I'm sorry but I'm not able to do that and if you continue to be abusive I will have you removed from the premises. Now fill the form in.' She pushes it back to me. 'Or get in the elevator and go home.'

'I'm going to be sick.' I tell her. I look at her and she looks back. 'I really am going to vomit.' I tell her again and she still does nothing. 'This is a fucking hospital isn't it? Get me something to chuck up in.'

'Go home before I call security.'

So I vomit on her desk and on her and on the floor and over the fucking form and some of the stuff I bring up looks like maggots and worms and slimes from hell and it is mixed in with blood and gore and filth. She reacts now though.

'Oh my good god!' She yells and jumps to her dainty sodding feet and I wipe my mouth with the back of my hand.

'I feel a lot better now. You wanted my name?'

But people are running over to me now and insisting I sit down and making a fuss of me and crap. They ask me my name.

'Flanders.' I tell them. And suddenly there is a silence.

They ask me my full name.

'Floyd Flanders Franks.' I tell them…and that fucking buzzing again. They are doing all they can to stop me so I know for sure that this is where I am meant to be. 'And I need to see Reid.' When I look up at them there is a cup of water being offered and all mouths are agape.

'You are Franks?'

I sigh. I hate being called that, but if it will give me access then I'll be Franks.

'Err yes. That's a problem?' I slap the side of my head. 'I need to see Reid.'

'Of course. Of course. Smokey vomit from Hades seems to be getting me what I need. Someone is taking my arm and helping me out of the chair again. The chair I could have gotten out of on my own and I am directed to room ten. They unlock the door and it hits me so hard that my head spins and every nerve ending in my body tingles. I know him. I know that smell. I push the assisting hands off me and tell them to go away. I'm not sure why they gave me access just because my name is Franks. I'm thinking it was the smoke and vomit that did the trick. I'll try that more often. Vomiting on bitches that is. I walk now and stand next to the bed. He has a tube in his throat forcing his lungs to work and things attached to his chest monitoring his heart and tubes going in and going out all over the fucking place. I reach out and touch the back of his hand and again the tingling though my body. I step back again and turn. They are watching me from the door way so I walk over and close it and then close the blinds. I don't want those nosy fuckwads watching me. Quickly back to Reid and I lean over to get a better look at the face. It's still not familiar but my god it is beautiful. I look at the tape holding his eyes shut and wonder what his eyes look like. I saw the pictures but that's not the same as actually seeing into his soul. I run my fingers gently over his lips and imagine all the wonderful things he could do with those.

I'm sort of confused.

I am getting mixed messages. Memories. But they are all muddled. I've been with this person before. Many times before. I just have to sort it out in my head and the best way to do that is to errr….comfort the poor bloke. I walk slowly to the other side of the bed not taking my eyes off him all the time I am moving. Then when I am in place I put a hand on his shoulder.

'Hey you.' I say, but I know I wont get an answer. A quick glance at the machinery tells me that. This guy is dead. Has been for a while, but I think I might be able to fix him if he is who I think he might be. Who I am beginning to feel sure he is. I don't have a first name yet. Dr Reid. I think an FBI agent. I remembered Hotchner and Morgan and that slut JJ and I think JJ remembered me. That's not a problem though. If they are all agents and this guy Reid who is doing incredible things to my mind and err my body is also an agent. I say is to myself to see if it means anything 'Agent Reid.' But nothing sparks up and lights those dim passages in the back of my mind they are keeping from me. I adjust the side of the bed and push down the cot like barrier there to stop him falling out of bed and I bend forwards over his face and slide my tongue over his lips. I stand and frown. Still nothing. I really am going to have to climb up on the bed and give him the fully whammy of Flanders healing powers. I push gently on his shoulder until he moves to lie on his side and now I can see his back. I can see scars running down it. I can see the knobbles of his spine. I can see….oh yes I can see the gentle curve where back meets arse and I lick my lips and clamber up on the bed next to him.

'I'll try not to hurt you too much.' I whisper in his ear as I brush my tongue over that sweet oh so sweet skin.

A sudden flash.

A sudden memory. He tastes sweet. I know he tastes sweet. He is special. He was mine. And I will reclaim him again. I lie down behind him and with one hand I wrap over his thin chest. The other I explore and probe and feel. I know this – this person. I know this I am feeling with my fingers. I know the feel of that heart beating in his chest and yes he is beautiful, but I still don't know why he is so damned special. I'm going to have to reboot his brain and get him working properly before I can find out what it was. There is still that thin slither of something between us. We must have been close for a long time for them not to be able to sever this completely. I am intrigued and more than a little bit happy to help and give comfort to this broken person. I move my hand around and stroke him and kiss the back of his neck and ask him if he is ready and obviously I'm not expecting him to reply so I take him hard. I take him deep and when I do I get this damned wonderful feeling come over me. I need him awake. I need him to be able to share this with me. 'Come on babes…wake up now. I'm here.' You'd think nothing much would happen to a brain dead bloke but I get all the response I need. I feel how he is reacting to what I am doing to him and I can hear the sudden bleeping of the monitors when he starts to push back onto me. 'You want more babes?' And it is glorious. It is the best damned fuck I've had probably since I last had him. This is what I have been missing. I bite and lick at his neck and shoulder and I press my hand firmly against a bony chest. 'You can wake up you know. You don't have to hide from me. I'll protect you. I'll comfort you. I'll take you home with me and cook you supper.' I feel the wonderful reaction I am getting from something not much more than a corpse and damnit is this shame I feel? I'm not sure, but screwing a corpse does have certain, I don't know, just something delightful and special about it. The total compliance I think, though it is always best if that person (or animal if desperate) has been freshly slaughtered by my own hands. We sweat in unison.

We fall into that wonderful moment…that pre smoke moment together. I wipe my hand on the bedding and I'm about to pull away when I hear a voice.

'What in the name of god are you doing!?'

* * *


	4. Chapter 4 Escape

Escape

* * *

I was on my way over here anyway. I didn't know him as well as I knew Aaron and he amused me and confused me sometimes. I would never wish this on him though and if by some happy chance he ever does pull through this mess and is able to understand then I want my name down on that list of people who came to see him regularly. It is also somewhere usually quiet. Somewhere I can just sit down the other side of that big window and watch and think and know who easily that could have been any of us.

Will called. He knows I go over there and was wondering if I'd seen JJ. She's late back. He's worried. The baby is crying. He wishes she was here and not over there with Spencer and I can understand that. I can completely understand the views of both people.

I see her car is in the parking lot and so I let Will know. 'JJ must still be here. I can see her car.' I can't call once I am inside the building but I'm sure she must be around. I know though as soon as the doors of the elevator open on floor five that things are not going to be my normal quiet. People are rushing about. There is a vile smell of decay and vomit. It smells like a rotting animal in here. I think firstly to fall back and go home, but I remember JJ and I see that there is a huddle of people talking in hushed voices near to Spencer's room. The mess is between me and them so I have to walk carefully. It is as I approach that someone spins and his eyes go big.

'Dave!' Yes we go by first name terms here now. 'Thank god you are here!' He is looking very alarmed and so I walk faster.

'What's going on?'

'He has a visitor. Dr Reid has a visitor. He – well – I'm not sure how it came about but he says he is Franks. He demanded to be let in Reid's room.' A pause. 'Really for the life of me I don't know why we let him! He looks like a – a - .' I put my hand on his shoulder and move him aside.

'You are meant to let us know if anything happens.' I don't feel very happy with this news. Especially as I know what went on earlier with the pick pocket. 'How long has he been in there?' My had is going for the door handle.

'I'm not sure. Not long. I don't know.'

So I push the door and open and I don't like what I see.

'What in the name of god are you doing!?' and am moving across that floor faster than I thought I could move. This filthy person is on the bed behind Reid and the monitors are bleeping insanely. 'Get off the damned bed!' Then I am there pulling the creature away and off the bed. 'What the hell have you done to him?!' I don't know when I was last this angry and disgusted. I want to pound him into the hospital floor but he moves fast and stands it seems defensively between Spencer and me.

'No one asked you to come in. He's not meant visitors. Get out Rossi. You're not wanted here.'

For a second I am thrown. How does he know me? Do I know him?

There is nursing staff standing at the doorway. They seem afraid to enter the room with this person I assume is Franks in the room. 'Get in here and help him.' I snap at them. 'I want to know what the hell he has been doing.'

'I'll tell you if you really want to know, but I don't think it's any of your fucking business and touch me and I will have you for assault. I don't care who the fuck you are.' He looks at me directly in the eyes and lifts a finger and places it on my chest. 'This – all of this mess could have been avoided you know, but you don't listen do you? You have you stiff preconceived ideas of how the world works and you wont bend to see what is right around the corner.'

I slap his hand away from me. 'Step away from the bed.'

'No. Rossi. Agent David Rossi – go and do what you are meant to be doing. Go catch your serial killer. You are not wanted and you are not needed here.'

I don't want to pull a weapon in a hospital room, but I seen no options here. The man just raped a comatose Federal Agent and he will not get away with it and so I step back and pull my side arm and point it at his face. 'Step away from the bed now Franks and let the nursing staff see to Spencer.'

It's instantaneous. I don't see the seconds of confusion or doubt flicker on his face. I don't see the point in which he realises I have the upper hand on him. I just see him go from a spiteful malicious monster to – I don't know what it is. His face loses that hard edge it had. His fists unclench and he spins so his back is to me and he is facing Reid again.

'Spencer?' His voice is so quiet it is almost just a sigh. 'Spence?'

He puts a hand on the sleeping form and doesn't react when I press the barrel of my gun to the back of his head. 'Touch him again Franks and you will be in a bigger world of shit than you already are. Move away.'

'Flanders.' He mutters. 'Call me Flanders.' And his hands go to the side of his head – over his ears as he turns he is already going to his knees. His nose is gushing blood. There is red liquid oozing from between his fingers and it looks like he is going to say something to me, but when his mouth opens he seems to empty the contents of some meal from hell onto the floor.

-o-o-o-

I throw my dinner at the wall. It makes a soft splogging sound as the plate slides down the wall. I've got this well rehearsed now and can throw the lot and not break the crockery. Aaron is on his feet though. I think I've pissed him off again. I can see he wants to shout 'go to your room' at me, but he doesn't.

'Clean it up.'

Is all he says and with clenched fists he is sitting down again. 'Why don't you just hit me? I know you want to.'

'Because I am trying to show you that violence and acting out isn't the way to get what you want. Clean it up.' His voice is steady and calm but I do know it's all an act. I also know that it will be he who cleans up my mess cos I'm just not going to.

'I told you I wanted pizza.'

'You have to learn Sam that you get what you are given and you be thankful for it.'

'It burns my damned fingers!'

'You have a fork.' So I pick it up and hurl it across the kitchen where it hits a cupboard and falls to the floor.

'I don't want to use a fucking fork! I want to eat the way I always damned well eat.'

He carries on eating his food. I hate bloody forks and knives and crap. Why cant he let me eat a meal without it having to be some sort of sodding lesson on how to be the perfect kid. 'I'll never be what you want me to be. I'll never be like those kids out there. Why cant you just let me go and leave me alone.'

He swallows the food he has in his mouth and looks up at me. 'You want to leave? You want to be back out there in the cold with nothing?'

'I didn't have nothing though did I? I had my skills.'

'Sam, you had nothing, but you are welcome to leave if that is what you really want, but the door will never be unlocked for you again.' He stands up and pushes his half eaten meal to the middle of the table and then walks out of the kitchen. I look at the food and think for a while that I could quickly eat that as my stomach is grumbling like a whore now, but he'll know and I don't want him to. I am about to follow him and issue more complaints about how he treats me when I hear the phone ring. I stand and I listen. Something has happened. Something bad has happened, but something worse is about to. He hangs up and makes a call of his own. 'Send Agent Johnson around please.'

I am out of that door and ripping the phone cord from the wall to try to stop the call and now he does what I thought he would have done months ago. He turns with a look of such fury on his face that it looks like someone just ran down his new puppy and he back hands me across the face. It's hard. He hits fucking hard and it makes my eyes water and I sort of just stand there looking at him.

'Now is NOT the time to piss me off Sam. Go to your room.'

'You bastard! I don't believe what you just did. You hit me! I'm a kid and you bloody hit me! I fucking hate you Hotchner and if I'm gone in the morning it's because you fucking hit me! You can't do that! You can't get away with that. Bloody hell.'

And I turn cos I'm really afraid he will either do it again or I will start crying like a sodding girly. I run up the stairs and go in my room and slam the door behind me. I think about putting on loud music, but I don't. I go to my little drawer of secrets I have and pull out a couple of things. I then slide under my bed and right in the back corner under a bit of carpet I pulled up from the edge I gather the rest of what I need. No one, no one has the right to do that to me and if they have the right to do that then I have the damned right to do this! I lie on my bed and wriggle out of the denim jacket I'm wearing and look at my left arm. This is the reason I kept my jacket on. I have on my favourite orange Tshirt and you can see very clearing a run of new and old track marks. I didn't want to do this. Really I didn't, but the bastard has driven me to it. I tie something around my upper arm and pick up a needle. I've only used it a few times. It'll be ok for now. I suck liquid up into it from the phial I now place under my pillow and kaboom and whammo…I'm lost.

-o-o-o-

There is too much going on. I have to leave Sam in the hands of Johnson and rush to the hospital and try to not scream.

They found JJ.

It's not a case we can get involved in. It's too close. Too painful. Too pointless. The parking lot is cordoned off when I arrive driving too fast and too reckless in my numb fog to get there and hope it isn't true. It is some other poor woman. Someone else's pain to deal with. Morgan and Prentiss are already there. Ashen faced. And I don't want to look at them because that confirms what I don't want to know. I slide out of the vehicle and just stand and look. I need to take control. That is what I do. That is my job. But why JJ? She was a new mother. She had just started out on her journey. Why would someone do this?

I feel something on my arm and as though in slow motion I turn to look at it. Emily's hand. I look up at her face and at her long hair blowing gently in the breeze and note that though she is pale she is dry eyed. She is hard. She has "compartmentalized" the death of JJ. I want to move her hand away but I can't move. I just stare at her.

'They are checking out the scene sir.' Her voice is steady but I can hear the change. Maybe there is something there after all. I take a step forward towards where the huddle of people are. 'Sir, let them do their job. There is nothing we can do right now.'

'What happened?' Two words only and I don't think they betrayed how I am really feeling. A boiling rage. A deep dark sadness.

'They're not sure. Her neck, she had a broken neck.'

I need to sit down so that the world will stop spinning. 'Someone broke JJ's neck and we are standing her doing nothing?'

'Hotch.' This time it is Morgan. 'There are security cameras here. Garcia is checking it out. They are going over the car. She hadn't unlocked it. It doesn't look like anything was taken. Her bag and money and cell phone – they are all still there.'

'Not a robbery?'

I hear Emily sigh. 'It doesn't look like it. We will know more once we have checked out the footage. Whoever did this, we will find them.'

I glance around again. 'Where's Dave?'

Another sigh from Emily but it is Morgan who talks. 'Flanders. He's here.'

'Here? Where?' I am looking around again, but I can't focus my thoughts. I need to calm down. I need to lead. I need to be the one they turn to. I need to be the shoulder they come to.

'He was in with Reid. I have no idea how he found him, but they have Flanders and if he had anything to do with this then we will find out.'

'In with Reid? What the hell is going on here? Where is Flanders now?'

'Well it seems there was an incident. They are attempting to stabilize him.'

We need to regroup. We need somewhere to sit away from the crowds. I need to see Flanders. I need to, I need to see JJ. I will have to talk to Will. 'Has anyone contacted Will?'

There are nods and gentle words of comfort from Emily and there is a hand on the shoulder from Derek but it doesn't matter. Flanders is the one I have to talk to. 'Morgan stay here. Stay in touch with Garcia. Let me know the minute she knows anything. Prentiss with me. I want to see Flanders now.'

-o-o-o-

I think I writhed around a bit.

I think I made a big howling fuss and a lot of mess.

I can sort of remember hands on me dragging me and carrying me somewhere and now I am there, or here. In this room on a bed looking at the ceiling. They are going to make this hard for me. No…not that. This problem with this Reid, who is Spencer. I know that name. I remember him. Those memories with the smudged faces are clear now. He was mine and I'm being told, being warned away. I'm not allowed him again. I think I've caused a lot of excitement today. A dead agent. Lots of nice vomit, a generous helping of blood and possibly if they look at it with their unbending minds they will consider I raped someone too. Now, I'm not going to deny what I did to him. I can't really which might get me in a bit of trouble, but in my mind he responded. Hell in my _hand _he responded so I think I'm clear on that one.

Spencer though, I need to help him. I know I can pull him back. I know I can. But these people here and that lot keeping me from him, the ones always watching me, the ones not permitting me to take back what is rightly mine by conquest, well they might not want me going near him again. As I think about it I get that buzzing in my ears again and I sneeze a mighty blood clotted sneeze and spray the bedding they have oh so thoughtfully put over me.

I need to get up. I need to go and find out what is going on. Actually I need to get the fuck out of here before they try to pin that little accident in the parking lot onto me.

They have cuffed one of my hands to the rail along the edge of the bed like I am some kind of freaking criminal, but they don't know me too well yet. I yank a couple of times on it and then reach my other hand over and stroke the cuff. It pops open and releases me. The idiots. They will learn. They will learn not the fucking well mess with me. So I have just sat up and my nose is bleeding again but I ignore that for now and the door opens and in walks the man.

'I need to talk to you.' He says to me.

'I've nothing to say to you Hotchner. Once again you are keeping me somewhere for no reason.' I stand and the world spins but I still stand. I'm not going to show weakness to this fool.

'You assaulted Reid.' He snaps at me. 'How did you know where to find someone you said you didn't know? What are you doing here?'

'I don't need to answer your questions. I didn't hurt Spe… I didn't hurt Reid. Ask him. He enjoyed it.'

He is angry. Oh man is he pissed. I think the mixture of his earlier failure to pin anything on me and now the dead bitch and now Reid, well I think the man might just explode.

I sneeze again and this time I aim it at him and his nice suit and pale blue shirt. He wipes the dribbles off his face but doesn't react further than that.

'What are you doing here?' he hisses between his teeth.

'Waiting for you to move your pretty pert arse out of the way so I can go home. You know I've had a shit of a day and still not been able to sleep. I don't want to spend anymore time talking to you. Get out of my way.' I put a hand on his shoulder and push. He tries. He tries to pull my hand away and I think he is slightly surprised at how strong I actually am. I grab his arm and twist and now I am behind him with my arm around his neck and my voice in his ear. 'You might well think you are top man Agent Aaron Hotchner, but I know. I know your twisted needs and thoughts. I know you watch. I know you want to have Reid as your fuck partner, but he'll never want an old boring git like you. You are nothing to him. Yes he will probably let you fuck him cos he is a slut and likes having something rammed up his arse, but he'll never want you. Not in the way your want him. He might well come to your for comfort, but he certainly doesn't want to settle down and have your children. So fuck off and leave him alone. Leave me alone. Go back to some dried up hag of a woman and satisfy yourself with that.' I'm still pressing my arm against his throat and he somehow isn't struggling so much now. 'Reid doesn't want you. I don't want you. No one wants you. You are a bore. Go away from this place and find your own life. Go back to Sam and try to knock him into shape, but Agent Aaron Hotchner..' I'm not sure he is listening to me now. 'You won't win there either.'

I heard her footsteps. I heard the sigh of the gun leaving the holster and I can smell Emily. I release Hotchner who slides to the floor in a lump and turn to Prentiss who is standing with a gun pointed at me.

'Oh Emily. What have you done to yourself. My sweet, put the gun away, you know you can't shoot me. You know you will never do that. I can smell it on you. You like a man who can look after himself. You like a man who will take what he wants.' I move towards her.

'What have you done to him?' She snarls.

'Oh put him to sleep for the shortest of whiles but that is not your concern.' I let her get a nice waft of my special smells. Not the blood and vomit smells, but the other ones. The ones I can use to manipulate with and confuse with and get out of shit with. I take a closer step and place my hand over her gun and remove it from her hand. 'Nasty things guns are. Girls shouldn't play with them. You need a hair cut.' I watch her hands go to her hair and a confused look crosses her face. The gun I drop to the floor. She wont use that on me. I know she wont. I wipe away a fresh flow of blood from my nose. 'You need to sort your life out girl. You look like shit dressed like that.' I take a trial step passed her. Will she let me go? 'You need to tend to your fallen comrade. I think he might need his tie loosened.'

'What?'

I hear her say as I move through the door and head for the fire exit.

'I'll be back for you Spence. I'll be back and next time I'll be better prepared.'

* * *


	5. Chapter 5 Feeling Alive

Feeling Alive

**A/N: NONCON SLASH and assorted icks**

* * *

He was here. Like something from a nightmare mixed with the most wonderful dream. In this vile darkness I have been lying in for so long suddenly he is here. He is touching and talking and moving and comforting me, but I don't know why this feels so good. I know him. I know him from the deep foul nightmares I have been having for so long. A long time before I was plunged into this new darkness. A long time. I remember the feel of his hands. I remember that smell. I remember that touch, but I also remember the pain and the fear.

I can feel new hands touching me now. I can hear faint voices from somewhere outside of my head. Alarmed voices. Worried voices.

Don't. Please don't touch me there. Leave me alone. Please leave me alone and bring back that other person.

I need.

I need to see him and smell him.

I need to open my eyes but I cant. I want to move my hands and slap these unfriendly cold fingers away from me.

More hushed tones and more movement. I lie here and listen to words which I don't understand. I can hear them. I can hear them clearly but it sounds like they are talking backwards. Too fast. Too slow. Then silence and the bleeping of machines and the gentle noise of something else. Breathing. My breathing. Air being forced into me. This is what I am listening to. This is me.

Someone is touching my hair. Softly. Moving their fingers through it and I can hear a voice talking gently to me. I don't know the voice. It is too distorted, but I know the smell and it relaxes me.

Come on! Move hands move for me. Let him know I am still here. Don't let me die now I am so close to coming back! I don't want to live in this darkness anymore. I don't want to hear the machines and the whisperings. I want to be me again. I can do this. Give me the chance. Let me see again.

'Spencer?'

Hotch!

It's Hotch. He knows I'm here. Come on Aaron, have faith in me. You know I wouldn't give up without a fight. I just needed time. Time to pull back together. Time for, for what happened. For that feeling behind me. That feeling of need from someone else. That hand pressing on my chest and that hand taking me in his. That. Now I am ready. I can heal properly without the machines.

Suddenly the hand is gone from my hair and the smell has gone again and though I hear voices I am alone and I can feel a horrible sucking drifting feeling as something tries to pull be back again.

I won't go. I won't be taken back there again. Help me Aaron! Come back!

-o-o-o-

Prentiss is sitting out in a small rest area with her head in her hands and tears seeping from between her fingers. I would have shouted at her if I could but right now I can hardly talk. I would have told her to go home and to take some time to think about what happened, but I don't know what happened. I don't know what is still happening. Morgan informed me that Garcia can't get anything from security footage. The bit she needs simply isn't there. There is over an hour missing. Just blank. Nothing to look at and nothing to find. Everywhere is in chaos and I have to find out how Flanders managed to overpower two armed agents when he should have been cuffed to the bed! My neck hurts but no lasting damage. My heart though, I'm not sure I will be able to repair the damage done to that. I don't know if Flanders killed JJ. I don't know why Emily let him take her gun from her hands and I don't know why I let him choke me while I listened to the words he was hissing into my ear. I can still hear them. It is as though they are imprinted onto my brain.

I have to see Spencer. I know that they used the rape kit on him. I know they had to do that and I want to know what the results are stat. I need to know if it was indeed the same person who violated Reid as raped and killed all those other people. If the DNA matches then we have our man. We had our man. He is gone again, but at least we will know who to look for.

Dave moves over towards me and places a hand on my shoulder. 'You really should go home.' He tells me and I know it is because I am crumbling. I am giving way under the pressure of everything which is happening and I am not going to be able to help the families of those already dead if I cannot get my head back in the right place and start thinking clearly, but home is not the place to be. I think of Sam and how he will be shouting and swearing as soon as I walk in the door and I can't deal with that. It was a mistake. I should never have taken the boy in and I can't even remember clearly the events which lead up to it, but I cannot let him down even if I tell him he can leave I know I would need him back again. It is almost as though there is something holding the two of us together. He hates me. I know he hates me, but he stays. I cannot bare the sight of him but yet I give into him and allow this behaviour. Yes I have sanctions set and he does seem to be keeping to them for now, but it's a struggle and home is not the nice comfortable relaxing place it used to be when it was just Haley and I. My home is a war zone.

'I need to check on Reid.' I tell Dave, but I don't look at him. 'If you could keep an eye on Prentiss. I think maybe she should go home.'

I feel the hand tighten on my arm then release. 'I will take her home myself. Go and see Reid.'

We avoid mentioning JJ because right now that is a step too far. I touch my neck where the pressure had been so great that I blacked out and it is sore, but not as bad as would be expected.

And so here I am looking at him. He doesn't look any different from the last times I have seen him. No look of horror over what happened. Nothing. I stroke his hair gently and I say his name and I look at the tube going into his neck and at a small row of bruises rising now on his chest where someone pressed his fingers into the flesh. I want to cry. I want to feel something but I am numb now. My mind has closed down and all I can feel is an emptiness.

I rub at my eyes with my fingertips and push my hair which is in dire need of a cut off my forehead where it has fallen and at first I think it is just because I want it so much. I need it so much. I think at first I am imagining it, but the more I stand and look the more I am convinced. I spin on the spot and the room spins with me and look over at hospital staff standing sadly in the doorway.

'He moved.' I say, but I get no reaction. 'His fingers moved. His eyes. He moved.' And they stand and gawp for a few seconds before they rush off to get who they need. I turn slower back to look at Spencer. The room didn't spin this time. It stayed with me. I just stand and look at him. Too afraid now to touch him.

A hand on my shoulder gently guides me away and people are talking and muttering and all I can think of is _he moved he is still there. Spencer is still with us_.

-o-o-o-

I have to think fast.

I have one of those moods on me and I don't like the feelings it is giving me. It is too much of a risk. I can't afford to do anything so close to where I already have.

My head is spinning and my mind is buzzing like white noise in my head. They are trying to block it all. They are trying to remove it, but I won't let them.

'I know his name.' I tell them 'It's too late. I know who he is.' And the further I move from the hospital (and I am moving at a frightful rate) the quieter they become until eventually they leave me alone. It was a warning. I know that. I must keep away from Spencer. I must stay away.

There is a red fog of anger building up now. I know what I need to do and I think I know where to find it.

This is why a few hours later I am walking slightly behind Danny and his leather trousers. He wants me. I want him. I don't know if we have the same wants though. There was an offer of a motel room which I hurriedly turned down. A motel wouldn't do. Not tonight. Not with what I have planned and so gentle persuasion has Danny and his tight white shirt leading me back to his apartment for the night.

I am sure this isn't something he would normally do. This bloke is slightly taller than me and has more muscle to look at down those fit arms. He has a nice looking arse which is one of the reasons I am slightly behind him. He is a top. I am playing a part of a bottom. That's fine. It won't get that far anyway. I have no intention of letting his person with his long blond hair tightly tied back of taking my arse. That is just not going to happen. No need to tell him that yet though. Now really isn't the time for such a disclosure.

Danny has a car. It is old and unremarkable, but it has tinted windows which is good. I'd really rather not be seen with this person if at all possible, though I'm sure we have been seen. I sit and tuck my hair behind my ears and I smile at Danny with his gold watch (which I think is a fake) and he drives away and takes me on a twenty minute silent journey. He tries to talk to me with his New York accent and I give him nervous shrugs in return. Danny looks to in his late thirties and has a nice face on him and nice teeth to smile at me with and lovely mouth. I might try to get usage there before I do what I plan.

We pull up in a marked bay outside a tall featureless building and again he asks me if I would rather not go to a motel and again I say I would rather not if he doesn't mind. I don't like motels. I don't feel safe in them and he seems to understand my reasoning again, though really there isn't any other than I don't want to be stuck in a dirty motel room with some guy who looks like a hitter and a biter. Not that I'd permit it to go that far, maybe, but it might get a bit noisy.

So a short ride in an elevator and we are walking through into his place. I stand and take in the scene. It's ok. It looks clean and it looks like the sort of place I could maybe have some fun and games in. A shame it is unlikely to be with Danny and his tight arse.

The door gets locked and I am still just standing there. I wonder really if he has noticed the way I am dressed. I wonder if his mind has been fixed on bringing a stranger back to his place and he hasn't really considered why I am covered in vomit and blood. Though it could be that he couldn't see my mess in the dim light outside.

He is standing looking at me now. Almost as though he has changed his mind. As though he is about to request I leave, which I'm not about to. I keep my eyes down. I play my part and as he finally walks towards me and places two fingers under my chin and lifts my head to I am looking at him. I move my hands and place them on his hips and roughly pull him closer.

'You know.' I say to him. 'I think, maybe that there has been a misunderstanding.' And his damned tongue runs over my lips as I talk to him.

'Oh?' Is all he says as his hand moves down and fingers run over the front of my jeans.

'Err yes.' But I don't stop him from doing this. It makes me want him all the more. Only not in the manor he is thinking.

'Why the hesitation? You don't want me to fuck your pretty little arse?'

This time I move my hands up to his shoulders and grip tightly and say 'No.' and give him a quick kiss on the lips.

This results in the fumbling of my belt and a sliding down the front of my jeans with his hand. 'Don't lie to me. I can feel you want me.'

'Oh I want you. I never said I didn't want you. Just maybe not how you were thinking. Your fingers are cold.' I give him a slight squeeze with my finger tips.

'Come on…you are gagging for it. I can tell you are.' His tongue. My mouth. And his hand grabs me which sort of almost makes me smile.

'As I said, I think there has been a misunderstanding.'

His hand leaves and he tries to step back but my hands are firmly holding him in place now. Maybe my fingers digging in a bit too hard for this person's liking. I see a short flash of concern drift across his face. 'Tell me what the misunderstanding is boy.'

He called me boy. I don't like being called that. I frown and push my hips forward so I am in contact with this person.

'You see the problem is that I'm not going to let you fuck me. That I think is the misunderstanding.' My tongue on his lips.

'I see. You like to play games. I understand. You like it rough? You look like you do.' And the mother fucker head butts me. I wasn't expecting that and my head cracks back against the wall.

'That was another misunderstanding.' I tell him. 'Cos I'm the one who is going to smack your sorry arse into next year then fuck you as you lie bleeding out on your Indian rug. How does that sound?' I want to start hitting him now. I want to see his blood and hear his cries of surprise but I am also rather enjoying this experience. Seeing the look of puzzlement on his face. Feeling the way he is trying to pull back away from me and as my left hand leaves his shoulder and wraps around his throat I can see that he finally realises that he has made a deadly mistake in bringing some street whore back to his comfy place.

It was good.

He tried to defend himself. He tried to hit back, but the few punches and grabs which did make it through to me didn't have any effect. My fists to his face had him reeling back stunned almost too soon. The blood from his nose and mouth flowed nicely and when I twisted him and pushed him against the wall I spent a small amount of time whilst he was dazed licking the blood from him. And I talked to him. I told him what I was going to do. I told him how I was going to rip his heart from his body. I told him how I was going to fuck his dead arse. I told him how good that would feel for me because I really do like my boys compliant. And he tried to shout, but I ground my fist into his face until he shut up. I ground my knee into his groin until he couldn't breath…I squeezed on his neck until his lips went blue and then I let him go.

'You like hitting don't you.' I tell him. 'How does it feel to be on the receiving end? Are you enjoying yourself?' But he can't answer. He is a curled up whimpering huddle on the floor. So I take this chance and I pull down his fancy leather pants and I fuck him. I can see the look of horror and pain on his face as I rip into him. I can see he's not enjoying this one bit and that makes it all the better for me. I rip at his shirt and I bite on his chest and he howls in pain as I begin slowly and almost in a dream of my very own to devour him as I fuck.

The whole process probably took only an hour. But I am kneeling on the floor now looking at the mess I've made. I lean over the dead face and now I kiss it. I run my tongue over those blood covered teeth and I slide my hands over the bloody carcass. And that in its self makes me shiver and groan in delight. I've missed this. All those freaks I've quickly killed in the streets…none of them compared to this delicious encounter.

I just hope he has a nice sharp knife and some stuff to cook him up in. I fancy rib tonight.

* * *


	6. Chapter 6 Brothers

Brothers

* * *

I can feel hands on me again. Touching my fingers. Touching my feet. A hand resting on my chest. And still the muttering and whisperings in the background.

Let me see again.

I don't want to be in this odd darkness anymore.

I don't need its protection. I want to see. I need to see Hotch. I can't feel his hands on me though. These are not him. Please Aaron come back again. I need you to keep me here. Someone is touching my eyes. A strange pulling sensation, but not painful, just strange and hands on my face. I want to lick my lips and open my eyes. I want to hold onto the hand which keeps running its fingers over mine. I try. I concentrate on that hand and maybe something happened. It feels as though it did and the voices around me have changed from the soft sad voices to excitable quick ones. I can hear the occasional word amongst the jumble and I know the words but I don't know the meaning of them, but I know I should.

A bright sudden light.

Loud sounds of people running and calling to each other. I can hear the bleeping of the monitors has changed from the hypnotic steady bleeping to a mad frantic noise.

There is still something though trying to pull me back again. I need Hotch. I need to feel his hand on me. I need to be able to smell his aftershave and shampoo. I need that hand which is always so reliable and sure and gentle to be nervously on my arm.

-o-o-o-

I stand and watch. I listen to the excited jabbering of the hospital staff and the cries of surprise as the machines tell them what is going on.

There is brain activity. He is slowly coming back. I don't know how. It shouldn't happen. This shouldn't be happening. We should have buried this man in the cold earth a long time ago. Flanders prevented it. Flanders did this to him; brought him back to us. I want to let Spencer know I am here, but the huddle of staff won't let me through.

'It might be better if you wait outside.' I am told, but I'm not leaving now. I'm not going to miss one second of Spencer crawling his way back to me; to us, but a hand on my arm is leading me out of the room again and along the corridor to the place Emily had been sitting not too long ago. Or was it hours? I don't know anymore. I've lost track of time. I've lost track of everything. I sit with my head back resting on the wall behind the chair and I close my eyes. I need to locate Flanders. I need to find out what happened to JJ. I have to talk to Will. I need to see what is happening at home. I have to find out who has been killing and raping out in the streets and I have to stay here. I can't do everything. There is just too much going on.

'Agent Hotchner?' A voice is saying my name so I slowly open my eyes and move my head so I can look at who is talking to me.

'Yes?' I say. My voice sounds tired. Exhausted.

'There is a telephone call for you. At reception.' She sort of smiles at me and then turns and walks away again. Slowly I get up and walk to the big curved desk which smells slightly of disinfectant and vomit. They pass the white telephone.

'Hotchner' I say and get Johnson's voice back. Sam has done something. He's injected something. He doesn't know what it is and as he was getting no response from Sam called an ambulance. He is in the hospital now. What do I want to do? Yes he found the phial Sam used and no it has no markings on it. He is still not responding but has a steady heart rate and is breathing on his own. What do I want to do? That question again.

'Stay with him Johnson. Let me know if there is any change.' I pause as he talks again. 'I understand that but I am telling you to stay with him. I can't come down right now.' Another pause and more talk from Johnson. 'Yes…yes…just let me know if things get worse. I will be here for a while.' And I hit the disconnect button. I can't deal with Sam right now. I can't cope with more. I just stand and look at the clock on the wall for a while, not taking in the time, but watching the second hand tick, tick, tick, by and there is nothing I can do to stop it.

'Thank you.' I say as I eventually hand the telephone back. I need a coffee. I need a drink. I need something to take the edge of this day. I walk back to the chair I had been sitting in beforehand and resume my thinking position with my eyes closed and my mind shut.

-o-o-o-

It has been brought to my attention that I stink. As I crouch here on the floor looking at the remains for Danny I come to a life altering decision.

'I need a shower.'

Firstly I have to move this body. I can't have it lying here in the middle of the floor. If nothing else it will eventually begin to smell almost as bad as I do. I drag him by the feet to his pristine white bathroom and I am almost pleased to note that he has a tub and separate shower. This is good. Danny I hoist up and lob into the tub and then I turn to look at the smears on the floor left as I dragged him.

I frown at it and go to Danny's nice compact kitchen. He has plenty of cleaning products so I get a bucket and fill it with hot water and I get bleach and brushes and cloths and I set to work on the floor of this apartment.

When it comes to cleaning I have to be in the mood for it. Today I am. Today is a good day for cleaning. I start near the front door and on my hands and knees I scrub. I bleach. I disinfect. I scrape and clean until for now it will do. I check out the kitchen again and discover that good old Danny boy has a washer dryer machine. HAHA! I strip off there and throw my clothes in. Add some detergent and press on. It seems to be making the right sorts of noises so now I wander naked to his bedroom. Full length mirror. Nice. I like what I see. If I didn't know better I'd have him. Maybe once my clothes are cleaner I won't need a shower, but my hair is a shite of a mess and that does need to be sorted.

Back to the bathroom. I smile at Danny and turn on the shower.

Right…yes I know. I use soap too this time. I scrub at my hair and I wash all parts that need to be cleaned…and some of those parts I wash a lot over and over again. When done I turn off the water and snag a towel off the side and wrap it around my waist and check on my washing.

I could get used to this. Spencer and I.

The headache is so sudden and violent that I thought for a minute I was dead. It knocks me to my knees and the blood is squirting out of my nose. I hit my head on something, but I'm not sure what it is but the world goes black. For a few seconds I can hear the whoosh of the washing machine and then nothing.

Daja is shorter than me. Sometimes he is taller. Sometimes he doesn't look taller than a bug, but today he is just a bit shorter than me and stockier. I can't see his hair because of the big hat he has on, but I know under that black and ancient hat that he has black wavy hair. Today he is in a long black frock coat and he has chunky boots. I know about the boots and the metal toe caps cos he's kicking me with them and telling me to get the hell up off the floor. He has something to tell me.

Now, you might wonder why I'm got ripping his balls off and feeding them to a random dog, but you might understand later. Until then I'll curl up here in the dark and pretend this shit's not happening.

'Get up!' and another boot to my near naked and soapy clean body.

I can hear the whoosh of the washing machine again now, so at least I'm still in the apartment.

'Stop fucking kicking me you old whore!' I finally say and it works. He actually stops kicking.

'Get up then. I need to tell you something. I have a job for you.'

I don't want to listen to Daja. I know what he is going to tell me. He is a messenger and he only ever brings shit news or gives you impossible tasks to do which will end up killing you.

'I'm not interested. Fuck off.' I tell him. 'I'm not doing your dirty work for you. Get Taki to do it.'

I feel his leather gloved fingers wrap around my wet hair. 'But you've not heard what the payment will be yet.'

Now you have to realise that I could, under normal circumstances just kill the bastard. Except you can't kill something like this and I've tried doing the "I don't believe in Fairies" trick too, but this is Daja. I can't fight my way out of this. I can only attempt to talk my way out of it. 'You've got nothing I want. Let go of me and piss off.' How this squirt of a being can drag me to my feet I'm unsure, but he does never the less and I'm on my feet swaying slightly from the sudden head pain and smack I gave myself.

'Oh come on now Flanders, you know full well I have something you want. Something you need. I'll give you the chance to win him back again.'

He's offering me Spencer. It's tempting, but I'm not going to fall for it. There will be a trick along the way somewhere. Not even a trick, just a complete change of the rules and I'll get nothing but pain and someone else will get Spencer.

'I don't want him.'

Daja smiles at me in the shadow of his ridiculous hat. 'Very well. I'll send him back.' The hand lets go of my hair.

Now this isn't really playing fair. There is no way I am going to let him take Spencer back with him. There is also no way I am going to kill for him. 'Why take him back? Can't you just leave him be?' He is walking away from me out of the kitchen and into the lounge now.

'Because you cheated.'

'What? When did I cheat? What are you talking about?'

He's sitting on my couch like he bloody owns the place.

Sorry.

He's sitting on Danny's couch like he bloody owns the place.

'You kept him here Flanders. You stopped him dying when he should have and then you had the boldness to enter the building he was sleeping in and awaken him. That my little friend is against the rules. He should be dead.'

I glance around hoping to see something to drink but there is nothing obvious. 'That wasn't my fault. I didn't arrange any of that crap. I agree with you, they should have buried him a long while back. You can't penalise me for something I didn't do and had no damned knowledge of cos you wiped that part of my sodding memory!'

'Yes I can.'

'And if I do this job you will let me have Spencer?'

'Yes.'

'You're a fucking liar.'

'As are you.'

Fucker…

'How can I trust you?'

He raises an eyebrow at me. 'Listen Flanders. You have a choice. Take the job and hope I am being honest with you. Or turn it down and the funeral will be next week and there will be no digging him up this time. There will be nothing there for you.'

I'm pacing the room now trying to work out what to do next. 'Tell me the job. Let me decide.' And he is shaking his head.

'You know it doesn't work like that. Your towel is slipping.'

I grab at the towel and pull it back into place. 'So if I turn down this mystery assignment you will kill Reid and if I accept it you might still kill him?'

'That's about it. What do you think? Can you survive without him? He'll be gone forever. No resets. No getting Sam to turn back the clocks. Nothing.'

'OK. Let me go get dressed and think.'

He nods at me and I walk to the kitchen. Whatever it is wont be easy. I've made too much of a mess of this whole thing…right from the beginning. Right from when I first got tempted…right way back before I was what I am now…That's where I need to have the time taken back to, but that isn't something which can be done. I messed up. Maybe time now to start facing that and starting a fresh. A new face to lust after. A new – what am I thinking? Quickly I pull my jeans and shirt out of the machine where they are nice and clean and dry and slide them back on again. The shirt I put on but don't button and my belt I slip through the belt loops and do up at the front. I feel strangely good. Finger brushing my hair I return to Daja who is sitting now drinking whiskey. I can smell it. God knows where the hell that suddenly came from.

'I'll do it.'

He smiles at me and points to the table. All the information is in that file. I have arranged this place to be transferred over to you. In the name of Trent. Don't forget that. You will base yourself here. There will be no questions asked. I've removed the mess you made in the bathroom. You have a month to complete. Have fun.' He stands. 'and don't forget. Your "super powers" are greatly reduced when on "holy" ground. Don't let me down Flanders. One month remember. The rules are there. Once you've done this you are free to collect your payment. Do not try to see him or go near to him or contact him before that time or the job is forfeited.'

I nod and glance at the big envelope on the table.

'Good day Flanders.'

-o-o-o-

Dave is a good man. He decided that talking to me about events was not the way to go right now and left me alone. He did escort me to my apartment door and he did ask if I needed anything. I told him I just need to sleep, but really that is going to be impossible.

My mind is racing a million miles an hour and everything is distorted and wrong. Maybe if I sleep then I will wake up and none of this would have happened, but I don't think sleep is going to be my friend tonight.

A shower. I have a long shower and I scrub at my hair until my scalp hurts. Then I stand in front of the mirror in my bathrobe and stare into the mirror. What the hell is going on? I flick at my hair with my fingers and sigh. 'It has to come off.' I say to myself and reach for a small pair of scissors in the bathroom cabinet. I hack at it. I don't even look in the mirror to see what I am doing. I walk around the apartment cutting chunks out of my hair until it is about four inches all over. I know I look a mess but it's a relief to get rid of the hair. I just wish I knew why.

-o-o-o-

I can see. Not very well, but I can see. I can see shadows moving across my vision.

I can move. Again not very well but enough finally to reach out and grab a hand touching mine.

I lick my lips.

'Spencer.'

Oh god at last Aaron is back.

At last his nervous hands are on my skin. I want to scream and cry and laugh and kiss him with happiness.

'Can you hear me?' Aaron's voice again and so I reach out with my hand towards the voice and his hand grabs hold of mine. The bleeping of the machinery has died back to a steady beat again but I can still feel the air being forced into me. Please…I want to breathe on my own. I don't need this. My other hand I move to my neck as my eyes try to seek out Hotch. An outline in the dark, but I know it's him and he squeezes my hand tighter. Thank you for believing me in Aaron. Thank you for giving me the chance to come back again.

-o-o-o-

I feel dizzy and light headed. I feel sick and my head is pounding and threatening to explode. I can feel the prickling of tears trying to escape from behind my eyes, but I am the unit chief. I don't cry. I cope. I take it.

All this time. All the time since his accident I have been hoping they'd turn off the machines and let him be. I was preparing his funeral in my mind. I even wrote out the words I was going to say. I'd looked at grave markers and priced them. I gave up on Spencer and the only reason he is still here is because of Flanders name being down as his next of kin. The only reason he is looking at me now and trying to smile and squeezing my had and requesting quietly to have the tube removed from this throat is because that same person came to him and did something vile to him and brought him back to us. The same person who was brought in by chance for picking a pocket. The same person I am still certain has been killing and raping. The same person who knows Sam.

Sam.

I have to see him. I have to find out what is going on, but for now I have to concentrate on this. Johnson will let me know if anything happens.

-o-o-o-

Tonight I spend my time praying for the lost souls of the city. I pray for their salvation. I ask for them to be forgiven for being murderers and drug abusers. I ask for tolerance and understanding for the men who beat their wives. I ask for the youths to go back to the families who miss them. I pray on my knees in this small dark room all night. I mutter the words over and over again hoping my voice will be heard. I promise I will be out on the streets again talking and helping. I offer my time to the homeless shelters. I go to the drug rehab clinics and talk to the children and adults there. I am doing my best and I really think I am starting to make a difference. More people are turning up at the help centre I set up. More young men and women are arriving every day at the youth hostels and centres and asking for help

I am succeeding where everyone else failed.

I am making a difference.

And when the bell jingles out side to signal the rising of the sun, I rise also and go to the chapel to pray with my brothers for the forgiveness of my own sins. The ones which make me weak. The ones which make me trusting. The weakness of the love and compassion.

* * *


	7. Chapter 7 Dreaming

Dreaming

**a/n: slight slashy content**

* * *

I didn't look to see what was in the envelope. Not yet. I don't want to know what it is. It won't be straight forward, I know that much. Not if I've been given a month to complete. Not if the payment is so high. They know I'd never abandon him. And so I really don't want to know what I need to do yet.

I want to see what is in this apartment. No dead body in the tub it seems. No late night snacking then. I find alcohol. I find food of sorts and the wardrobes are stocked full with my clothing from home. I look at it and sigh. This is all very bad you know. Why do they constantly fuck with me like this? Why can't they just let me do what I'm here to do without the freaking side show?

I pace. I drink. I smoke. I look in the mirror and I think endlessly of Spencer. I need to walk. Before I look. I need to go out and get as close as I can before I know what I have to do. Before that taints everything. They are a thoughtful lot. They have not only left me my clothes, but when I get outside I discover they have left me my bike too. It would make me smile under different circumstances.

For about an hour I ride around aimlessly just thinking. Wondering what I'm going to have to do. I consider a couple of times that I should go back and find out, but I want some time not knowing. He obviously has given me a hint or two. There will be a church involved along the way somewhere. It's not a prospect that fills me with any sort of joy. I don't know how long I have been stopped up here. In a street across the road from the hospital. There is no buzzing in my head this time though, but I'm not going to risk getting any closer for now. I can do this. I can keep away. On one hand you know, a month is an eternity. On the other it's no time at all. I can resist this pull.

I wonder if I could try to contact him through my thoughts. Would that be considered breaking their precious rules? I will read what I have to do first and now it's raining. I can't stay here forever. With a sigh I start the bike up again and return to my new pad.

The envelope is still sitting there where I left it. It's a big one. A big brown envelope full of secrets. I get a drink and a smoke and sit on the couch and then just stare at it. As soon as I touch it I have accepted. Until then I could if I wanted to, call it off. Too late for that now. It's in my hands. Turning it over. Feeling the weight of it. There seems to be more than just a list of instructions in here. It's been sealed with Daja's mark in a blob of sealing wax. I slide my finger under it and crack it open. A deep breath as I tip the contents out onto the small table.

Photographs of a young blond bloke. Candid shots of him in various places. Outside a church. Outside somewhere called "The Mission House". One of him just walking down the street and a few of him in groups of other young men. I put them down and pick up a piece of A4 paper which is obviously my job sheet. I read it. I shout 'Fuck!' a few times and put it down. Then I pick it up again and swear into the night at Daja and the bastards who gave me this "job"

_The photographs are of Amos Fletcher. _

_He is a priest of good standing._

_Amos has become bothersome and we need him to be stopped._

_He also has a weakness which you will use against him and thus stop this child from continuing his missionary work._

_This young man enjoys the company of other young men and so you will seduce and deflower him and whilst in a state of sin you will remove his heart and deliver it to us. _

_This final act must be done where there are witnesses and must be done in his church._

_It must be done under his terms Flanders. No rapes and murders. He must ask you for it. He must be the sinner. He must initiate the act._

They want me to fuck a priest? I pick up the pictures and look at them again then throw them to the table in anger. It's not that I can't or even that I don't want to, but this will be the final nail in the coffin of any redemption I could have maybe clawed my way towards if I felt like doing it. This is burning my bridges. It's one thing going into a church and killing the guy. It's quite another doing it like this. Doing it for Daja.

So I sit and think of Spencer for a while and I drink some more of Danny's whiskey then lean my head back with my eyes closed and remember Spence. Remember all I had forgotten. It comes back not in dribs and drabs slowly flickering its way into my mind, but in a huge splurge or every act I have performed on him since the beginning of time. It makes my balls ache it makes my nose bleed it makes a funny popping sound in my ear and I need him now. Right now. Not in a fucking months time…now. I think of the bike and the trip to the hospital. I think of Hotchner.

I come to a decision.

I have been given a month. Why take a month when I can do the job in a few days? Why waste time faffing around when I can put my mind to this and have that Amos bloke all over me. And me all over him. Then I will have my boy back again. Then I will be able to touch and smell and probe my way around that skinny bony body I need so much.

Tomorrow. I will start tomorrow.

Right now; until then, I will sleep.

-o-o-o-

I'm in a room.

A bright white room. As I stand I can hear breathing coming from behind me. I turn slowly. It's like my feet are too heavy for me. Each step is an effort. Each movement I make I have to concentrate on. As I gradually turn to face the breathing I can hear it getting heavier and faster. I can feel hot angry breath on the side of my face but I still can't see who it is. I blink a few times and finally the person comes into view.

Hotch! I reach out for him; to touch him. I want to feel that comfort and security, but he steps back out of reach of me. I move my mouth to say his name but before I can his hand comes up and strikes me across the face. The force of it makes me take a step sideways so I don't fall into whatever it is I'm standing in. There is no sound but the sound of his hot and angry breaths. Again I try to say something to him. I don't know what I have done. I don't know why he is so annoyed with me. Once more I try to reach out to him with my hand and this time he grabs hold of it. Twisting my arm and walking quickly and smoothly until he has forced my arm up behind my back and he is standing behind me again, only this time he is tight against my back. I want to call out in pain. I want to tell him to stop and ask him what I did but I don't get the chance. He pushes me forward until I am facing the wall and presses hard against my back grinding me into the surface of the whiteness. Now I can hear him. His words spit across my ear.

'You dirty slut.' And his lips touch my skin. 'You gave yourself to him like a whore.' I try to ask him what he is talking about but his words over-ride mine. 'All this time – all this time I have loved and cared for you. All this time worrying and waiting. Wanting you to want me and you push me aside and let that creature have you.' I try to pull away from him. 'All this time I've watched you and wanted you. All those times you've come to me to talk and you sit and say nothing. What was that all about Spencer? Those sideways glances you give me. Those hidden little smiles. The times you shower and walk around in just a towel around your waist and a smile on your face….what was that all about Spencer? Those times you accidentally brush against me and touch me with your hand. The times you have had lengthy discussions with me about nothing just so you can be in the same room as me. What was that for Spencer? Why did you do that then let him do that to you?'

Again I want to say something but before I do the hand holding my arm painfully is gone. The pressure behind me has gone and a finger seems to be drawing a line down my spine. Slowly I move so my back is to the wall and now I am looking at a different face. One I'm not sure I know. The face is much too close to mine and now this body too is pressing me back against the wall…his hips pushing hard against me his breath quick and hot on my neck. 'Hey babes.' I know his voice. I know the touch of those hands. I recognise the way he is pushing against me. Moving his body slowly as he grinds his hip against me. 'Miss me did you? I don't think you did. I asked you so many times Babes…I asked you and then I told you, don't go to Hotchner. Stay away from him, but you can't keep away can you?' His tongue slides lazily across my lips and his hand moves down between us. 'You're enjoying this aren't you? You are such a dirty slut Spencer. That's why I love you…if this is love…that's why I need you so much.' I want to respond but my heart is beating too fast and my mind won't let me think what I'm meant to be thinking. When those lips touch mine again I find one of my hands has slipped to the back of his head and I am pulling him into a deep hard lip bruising kiss. He pushes against me and I push hard back at him and his hands are all over me touching and probing and pinching and scratching at me.

'Is that what you like?'

I open my eyes and it is Hotch standing there again and the other person has gone.

'You like it rough and unfriendly? You don't want security and love? What do you want?' I stand breathing heavily wanting the other person to come back to me. 'Why do you seek out my comfort and my arms Spencer when really what you want is pain?'

'I don't know.' I finally manage to whisper.

'What don't you know?' And his hand is wrapping around my throat. I try to move my hands up but one of them seems to be stuck to the white wall behind me. With the other I claw and pull at the hand stopping me from breathing. I want to get away from him but I'm stuck against the wall with Hotch's hand tight against me neck and he is smiling at me. 'You like this?'

And he has gone.

I am on my back now and the room is red. Putting my hands on the floor next to me I realise it is sticky.

'Hey babes.' Hands on my legs pushing them apart as he crawls closer to me. Touching me. Pinching and scratching me and holding me close. I move my hands up and run fingers through his hair with one hand and grab his shoulder with the other one. I feel him moving me and pushing greedily against me and my back arches and I tip my head back and at last I can scream. A scream of wonder and delight as I feel this man forcing himself into me. I move my legs and wrap them around him and as he grinds against me with his body he bites and licks at my flesh.

This is what I want. This is what I need.

I realise that now.

I don't want the nervous hands. I don't want nights at sitting on a couch watching the television and drinking cocoa. I need this…I need this raw pain this person can give me. He allows me to feel. All the barriers in my mind. All the statistics and facts go. There is just this. The smell. The heat and the pain.

-o-o-o-

He is sleeping. I think he is dreaming. I can see his eyes under his eyelids flickering back and forth. The makes occasional small contented noises. Now would probably be a good time to go and visit Sam. I have neglected him but now at least a small part of my worry has passed.

It is very tempting to lean over him and give him a small kiss on those slightly parted lips, but I don't. I place my hand over his and talk to him quietly. 'I need to go and see Sam. I will be back.' Then I cross my arms across my chest and just stand looking at him. Is there really hope that he will recover after all this time? It shouldn't happen. It is impossible. He was dead. I take a few steps back away from him. I am his boss. I shouldn't be having these feelings for him. I shouldn't need him the way I do right now. I sigh and turn my back on him and see a nurse standing watching me.

'I can sit with him for a while.' She says with a sad smile on her face.

I nod and thank her and tell her that I won't be long. I have to check up on Sam. Obviously she has no idea who Sam is, but she doesn't ask she just nods and puts a hand on my arm.

'I will sit with him. He won't be alone. Don't worry. Go and do what you need to do.' And she drops her hand and walks to where I had been sitting in and she lowers herself slowly into the chair. I walk quickly from the room before I feel the need to go back in there and stay with him myself. I have a responsibility to Sam. I can't abandon him and I've heard no more from Johnson. I must show him, show Johnson, that I can cope with all of this.

It is the next floor down and another corridor much like the one on the floor above. I ask at the reception for Sam and I show her my ID. She gives me a worried smile and leads me to the room. A small room; very much smaller than the one Spencer is in and it is crammed full with machines and doctors and Johnson. They all look around at me and Johnson gives me a slightly stern look and introduces me. 'This is Agent Hotchner. Sam's guardian.' The looks on the faces turn from curiosity to annoyance.

'You do realise how ill Sam is?' A guy in a grey suit asks me.

I shake my head slowly. 'I'm sorry. There has been a lot going on. What happened?'

It is like a scene from a badly made movie. They stand with arms folded staring at me. I can only just make out the bed Sam is lying on and all I can hear is the sounds of bleeping and the sound of the breathing of the people standing in the room.

'It appears he injected a substance into his arm.' I am informed sharply. 'He is very lucky to be alive. You should have been here sooner.'

This attitude angers me but I try to keep my cool. 'I told you. A lot has been going on. I needed to be with someone else for a while.'

'Yes I understand that, but your colleague is an adult. This is a child. You should have been here before now.'

And Spencer needs me too and I need him, but I can't tell them that.

'I'm not here to be criticised over my parenting skills. I am here now. What can you tell me? What did he inject?' I have a pretty good idea. It wouldn't have been the first time Sam has put heroin into his veins. I had hoped it wouldn't happen again though.

'We don't know what it is. That's the problem. He is breathing fine. His heart is fine, but he is unresponsive.'

I turn to Johnson. 'You said the phial was with Sam.' I am getting snappy and annoyed again.

'Yes sir, but there was no label and the substance seems to be a mix of some known and some unknown drugs.'

It's not heroin. 'Where the hell did he get it from?'

Now Johnson shakes his head. 'I don't know. The phial has been sent for testing. That's all we can say for now.'

'We just have to wait until they can figure out what part of the mixture has done the damage.'

I turn to greysuit. 'He has taken Hero

in before.' I tell him.

'He has a number of old and fresh track marks on both arms Agent Hotchner. You should take better care of your ward. I am afraid we will have to report this to welfare. He has been thoroughly examined. Sam has suffered quite a bit of abuse whilst in your care.'

I stand for a while and shake my head. They don't understand. They can't possibly even begin to understand.

'He had a lot of alcohol running in his system. He is an obvious smoker. His – well, he is definitely not a virgin.' And again they are all staring at me.

'I hope you are not suggesting for one minute that I did this to him!' And they are still just staring at me. 'I need to see him.'

Greysuit shakes his head. 'That isn't really possible Agent Hotchner. Not until we know exactly what has been going on with this boy under your care. May I suggest you return now to your colleague and leave Sam with us for now?'

'You said I needed to be here. He is just a child.' I try to see passed them so I can look at Sam, the child I am meant to be protecting.

'Yes Agent Hotchner. You should be here. It would be nice wouldn't it? But I think it is in both yours and Sam's best interests if you stay away. At least until child protection have talked to you.'

* * *


	8. Chapter 8 Questions

Questions

**a/n: you may have noticed I'm not updating every day anymore. Eerr…I've been wondering if I should up the rating of my fic as it is 'T' right now. Not sure…anyone out there have an opinion on this?**

* * *

I had been curled up under the covers on this bed. I don't know when I was ever this tired before. Thinking about it I must have drifted off to sleep pretty quickly and I had the mother of all dreams.

-o-o-o-

A non-descript room somewhere. Almost square, but not quite and the walls are covered in old faded floral wallpaper. It's peeling along the seams and up in those cobwebbed corners. The size of this room doesn't really matter as it seems to keep changing. The floor is covered in an old red carpet which is threadbare and worn and very dirty. Things scattered in the corners; old condoms and needles and bits of rag and broken bits of things. The room appears to be lit up from somewhere but there is no light fitting. There are no doors and there are no windows and at first it is just me in there. I walk slowly around this strange room and it doesn't bother me in my dream that I can't get out. I can feel anticipation. I can feel something in the air waiting for me. As I walk I discover other things on the floor; cushions, photographs, burned down candles, empty bottles of booze of assorted types. The more I walk the more I find. Alcoves appear in the walls with small packages of things, little twists of cellophane. I find smokes and I find my lighter and now as I turn around there is a mirror on the wall, so I stand and I look at myself. I look good. I usually do so no real shock. Low cut black jeans and a waistcoat. No shirt and nothing on my feet. I feel the carpet with my toes and it feels soft and deep.

As I stand there now slightly wondering why I am here and why I feel safe and comfortable someone comes into view behind me in the mirror. I don't turn. I stand and watch as he puts his hands on my shoulders. You'd think it would be Spence, but it's not. It's someone else and as he stands there very close tight against my back pushing against me and running his hands slowly down my bare arms, I smile at him in the mirror and lick my lips. This is what I've been waiting here for.

-o-o-o-

The rest of my dream I will be keeping to myself. Sometimes you know, I just don't feel like sharing. It's morning though and I need to start getting this job sorted, so I start off by having a few large drinks from that bottle of whiskey and smoking a few smokes and pacing this apartment wondering where to start. My mind is constantly being pulled back to Spencer and I can't have this as a distraction.

I check what I'm wearing. I need to look the part and I don't know if I have anything suitable so I keep on the black jeans and shirt I have on already and put my boots on. I grab the keys and I'm about to leave when there's a hammering on the door.

'Shit.'

Now I know this isn't Daja, he doesn't tend to use doors, so I stand and wait to see if the knocking continues. Which it does. Followed up by someone calling Danny's name.

'Shit.'

I mutter again and try to get a story sorted in my head before I see who it is. The knocking turns into hammering and rather than alert the whole damned apartment complex that something is not quite right I go to the door and look through the spy hole. A guy is standing there with a slight worried look on his face. It's not too easy to see what he looks like due to bad lighting out in the passage and the distortion of the glass, but I can handle this. I unlock the door and open it. I don't want him running off so I need to be able to grab him easily.

'What?' I snap at this bloke standing there staring at me.

'I need to talk to Danny.' Caution in his voice.

Then things change. Suddenly it's not just some twink standing there but a small gathering of slightly muscular guys leaning on the door and putting booted feet in the way. I keep my eyes though firmly on this little shit and say slowly to him.

'Danny is not here. Fuck off.'

I wanted him to understand the first time and not have to repeat myself but things are never that fucking simple are they? The bigger guys are pushing their way in now. Five of them and then the twink. A hand on my chest pushing me back and I would have ripped him apart but, well, I decided not to. I decided to let them come in and have a look and find nothing then leave. At least that way I'd have no mess to clear up and I could get out and do what I need to do.

'Come in.' I snarl at them as all by one of them slither by me. This one bloke now pushing me against the wall. My muscles are tense. My hands are in fists. I want to kill him. I want to rip his balls off but what would be the damned point? Let them see Danny is gone and then they will leave.

So I thought.

I have been known to be wrong in the past and this seems to be one of those times. All I can say is that I have been weakened by Daja and his bloody tricks. It really doesn't take them long to realise that Danny isn't here and that his things seem to be missing.

Listen…it's not like they were all little guys. These were big chaps with big feet and big fists and nasty attitudes. Pushing the hand off my chest and telling the bloke to 'Get your fucking dirty hands off me before I rip your face off.' Didn't get me very far. He fucking ignored me and the hand didn't move. So I frown at him. 'Look – Danny isn't here. He's not going to be here and he definitely isn't in the bloody kitchen cupboards. What the fuck do you want?' tick, tick, goes my brain and I begin to realise that it's not actually Danny they want. They are searching every fucking where. 'Tell me what you want. I might be able to help you.'

The response was not a friendly one.

'Nico, shut him up.'

And the hand which wasn't still pushing on my chest is now smacking into my mouth and it bloody hurt. Maybe not as much as it did when I hit Nico back, but more I suspect than it normally would have done. Nico, flails back in shock, cos actually I pack a mean freaking punch out of no where, but though getting Nico off me was good they are now all piling in for a bit of Floyd. Let me remind you that these are big blokes. They have muscle and that muscle is on me faster than you can pour a drink of whiskey…that's to say not too fast, but quick enough.

-o-o-o-

I've been drifting in and out of sleep. Sometimes the sleep is full of nightmares and strange dreams and other times there is a strange darkness and nothing but a pulling sensation somewhere deep inside. I awaken in a slight panic each time and there is always a comforting hand on mine, but it's not Hotch. The nurse explains to me that he had to go and see Sam and will probably be back shortly, but it's not Hotch I want. It's that other person. The one who can make me feel; the one from my dreams. I lie there and stare at the ceiling in silence. My body hurts. My arms ache. The muscles in my legs keep going into odd spasms and when that happens the nurse gets up from the chair and gently massages me with lotions. She chats away to me. She tells me about the weather. She tells me about what has been happening in the world since my accident. I know she is just trying to be friendly but I wish she'd shut up. How can I sleep and be with that guy I met in my dreams if she is talking to me the whole time? She says she will turn on the television for me but I don't want that. I want to stop hurting. I want...I want this to be over.

I'm being allowed sips of water, but my main food source is still coming from the drips and tubes running in and out of me.

'Your friend is back.' She says to me and smiles. I don't know if it's because she can finally leave or because she is genuinely happy for me.

'Who?'

My voice is croaky and my throat hurts and I remember the hand around my neck stopping my breaths and suddenly the room is too hot.

'Agent Hotchner.' She says again in a happy tone.

'No! No, please. I don't want to see him.' I whisper out to her.

'Oh. But…..' I can see she looks confused.

'Please. Not Hotchner. I don't want to see him. I don't want him in the room. Tell him to leave me alone.' And flashes from my dreams are piling in and now I'm not sure if it was a dream or if it was all real. My stomach tightens in panic and I reach out for her. 'Please.' I say. 'I don't want him here.'

She takes hold of my hand and gives me a tight nod. 'I'll tell him you're not up to visitors. Relax Spencer.'

I sigh and go back to looking at the ceiling. _Where are you? Why aren't you here?_

-o-o-o-

My mood is deep and dark. I don't understand why they think I'd hurt Sam. But, I did. I did hurt him. I hit him. But the other things? I wouldn't do that. That's wrong. They've misunderstood. I need to just sit with Reid for a while. Sit and try to gather my thoughts and relax. Too much is going on. Too much is going too wrong too fast. I don't know how much longer I can deal with all of this.

I pace for a short while awaiting the nurse to let me into see Reid and when she finally approaches the smile I was feeling inside but not showing slides away into the darkness where everything else is falling into.

'I'm sorry Agent Hotchner but Dr Reid can't have guests at the moment.'

'Is something wrong?' I try to look and see if there is a scurry of movement around his room, but it all looks quiet.

'He's sleeping. I don't want him disturbed and he is definitely not up to questions. You realise that he's not meant to have visitors?'

I step to the side to move by her but she steps in my way again.

'I need to see him.' Is that desperation in my voice? I think only a profiler would recognise the change of tone but it was there.

'Come back another time.' She snaps at me. 'He has requested no visitors. Please, go home and have a rest. You look exhausted.'

Rest? How can I rest with everything which has happened? 'I need to stay.' I tell her and she shrugs and steps back.

'If that is what you want to do sir, but you won't be seeing Dr Reid. You'd be better off going home and sleeping for a few hours.'

Sleep? Is she insane? I need to lead! I need to gather the troops and sort things out. The case. We are working on a case. I brush my fingers through my hair and just stare down the corridor at Spencer's room. Why do I need him so much? He doesn't want me, he has made that clear so many times. Yet he torments me. The way he walks and stands and breathes and that special smell.

I turn my back on the room and nod. 'I'll be back later.' I say almost to myself and it may as well have been as I don't get a reply.

-o-o-o-

The ceiling slowly morphs and changes and I'm standing in a woodland. For a small while I just stand there and listen to the wind blowing high up in the branches and then hot breath washes over the back of my neck. Slowly I turn and it is him. The person I've been waiting for, but something is wrong. He is smiling at me with red bloodied teeth and his face is battered and cut and blood smeared. I look down at him and see his shirt is ripped open and there are black and red bruises and marks covering his chest and abdomen.

'What happened?' I say as I run fingers over his battered face.

'Doesn't matter.' He replies taking my hands in his and moving them away. 'Don't touch. Turn around.' And he puts a hand on my shoulder and turns me away from him and then with a hand placed on my back he pushes me forward until I can reach out and place my own hands on a large tree. 'I need you.' That hot breath on the back of my neck again.

'I want to know who did that to you.' I mutter as I feel his hands sliding up the back of my shirt over my warm skin. It sends goosebumps over my body and I squeeze my eyes closed just feeling those comforting steady hands which seem to know exactly what makes my body begin to tremble.

'Hotchner. But don't worry about it. I'm not staying away from you. He can't keep me from you.'

And his words are said directly into my ear making me shudder and making my fingers grasp hold of the old bark on this tree as his fingers start running over my ribs and his arms wrap around me pulling me close and pressing hard against me. I want to respond to his words but I don't think I can talk now as I feel his fingers working their way over my ribs.

'Slut.'

The voice hisses in my ear, but it's not his voice. I drop my hands from the tree and try to turn around but I move so slowly. Too slowly to stop the fist to the side of my head.

'Dirty little whore.'

Hotchner.

'He just looks at you and you are gagging for it. All those days you tormented me and teased me with your eyes and your mouth.'

I am being dragged away from where I was standing and still I don't seem able to talk and in this strange place my eyes try desperately to open but they won't do what I am telling them to. He moves around in front of me as I try to clear my foggy head from the impact of his fist. I can see him even though I can't open my eyes and as I stand there confused looking at the blood smeared over his face and clothing another fist comes in and catches me on the jaw.

Slowly – in slow motion I flail as I fall back into the leaves of the woodland floor. I want to curl up and protect myself from the attack but all I manage to do is to cover my face with my arm. I can hear the footsteps in the leaves and I ready myself for the kicks I am expecting, but it doesn't happen.

He is back again.

Gentle hands on me. Kneeling next to me.

'See what happens when you let him near you? How many times do I have to tell you to keep away from him? Why do you let him do this to you?'

I reach out to grab him…if I am holding on then he can't disappear on me again but my eyes suddenly open and I am looking up a nurse who is talking gently to me. 'It's alright Spencer – It's alright. You were dreaming.'

'No. No I wasn't.' I say, but I don't think she heard me.

-o-o-o-

You want to know what they did to me?

They dragged me by my arms back into the lounge where I had not long ago it seems slaughtered Danny. They're shouting at me. Demanding to know where "the stuff" is and even if I did know I'd not tell them. I am still deluded enough at this point to think they'll just fuck off and leave this be but they are angry bastards and now they need to take it out on someone. They start with three of them holding me still and even then it's not too still really. I can be a bit of a wriggler when needed. One of them took his fists to my face. I shout at them. I call them lots of words in lots of different languages but they don't seem to respond to well to being called what I chose. When the arm is wrapped around my neck and I kick back to get the shit off me then things start to go really wrong.

I'm not entirely sure exactly what happened, but I didn't wonder if this was a bit how Danny felt when I was killing him. Except these blokes can't kill me. They have a damned good try though.

I can't tell you all the details of what happened cos to be honest with you, which is fucking rare so make the most of it, I don't think I was awake for most of it. I remember the kicking. I remember my head getting smacked and I remember their demands which I didn't give into knowingly. I wake up sprawled out on the floor around about the same place I snacked down on Danny which brings a wry smile over my face and then I lie on my side and curl up. They've long gone. I don't know if they thought they'd killed me but I suspect they probably thought they had. Lots of blood. I can feel it as I roll over and wrap my arms around myself. I close my eyes and slip into a dream. One Daja would likely not like me having, but I can hardly control what my mind needs so damned much.

A first time for everything they say. This was a first for me and they've wrecked my place and left me bleeding out on the rug, but I'll remember the bastards. They've delayed my job by a full day now. I don't think I'll be going out seducing anyone today. Tomorrow. I'll start tomorrow and for now just let the dreams take me somewhere better.

-o-o-o-

I pace for a while before I decide that the only thing I can do now is to sleep. I can't remember ever feeling this tired before. I walk to the elevator and press the button to call it to me and then turn and lean on the wall to wait for it. I can hardly walk now I am so tired. Maybe most of it is stress. I'm not sure. Maybe shock. I don't know. I just know that I can't take more today. I have to go home and sleep and start again tomorrow.

'Agent Hotchner?'

I don't know how long they have been trying to get my attention but it's the hand on my arm which finally pulls me back to now and away from the nightmare I was slipping into.

'Yes?' I try to pull myself up. To be the leader. To be the one in charge, but I'm not sure it's working very well.

'Child Protection Services.' And a badge is waved at me. 'We would like to talk to you about Sam.'

No, not now. I can't do this now. I need to be able to think straight first before I talk to them.

'I'm just going home. Can we talk later?' My voice sounds tired and slurred to me, but I don't know if they notice.

'I'm sorry. This is very important. We need to talk to you now.'

I nod and sigh and pull myself together. 'Very well.' I say. Again my voice sounds wrong. Maybe worried? I'm not sure, but they don't react to it and so I push the wandering hair off my face and follow them back the way I'd just come. They – there are three of them – take me to a small office they've obviously been told they can use and point at a chair where I seat myself gratefully.

They start talking to me and it takes all my concentration to listen. I can hear them, but the words are not registering properly with my mind.

'Can you tell me please how long Sam has been with you?'

I try to think, but everything seems so vague. 'A few months I think.' I finally say. My answer as vague as my memory.

'Are you related? Can you tell me the reasons why he is staying with you?'

I nod. I know why he is with me, don't I? 'No, we're not related. He was living on the streets. I took him in to give him food and shelter.'

'I see. And what do you get in return?'

'Just the pleasure of seeing a neglected child straighten himself out.' Which is true…I think.

'You are aware that he is sexually active.'

I don't respond to this. Of course I knew it. I just hoped he'd stopped.

'We are informed that he smokes and drinks in your home. That there have been violent outbursts.'

'Err yes. No…Sam is violent yes.' I'm not sure where this is leading.

'There are drugs available to him.' They are telling me not asking me.

'I wasn't aware of that.' I snap back. 'Things have been very difficult these past few days. I'm really sorry I need to go.' And I start to stand up.

'Sam has old and new track marks up both arms Agent Hotchner. Would you like to see his blood test result and explain how a child in your care manages to get such substances in his blood? How he has managed to catch an STD and what it was he injected the day you attacked him.'

I refuse to listen to more of this. 'I didn't attack him. He is a very difficult child. I would like to see you do better.' I start to walk out of the room.

'We will want to ask you more questions Agent Hotchner, but you should know that Sam will not be returning home with you in the foreseeable future and we will be talking to Sam about this.'

I turn to them. 'Talk to him then. You deal with him. I have a dead agent madam…I have one just waking from a coma…I have a case I am working on. I have Sam to deal with and I have you. I need to sleep. You'll excuse me.' And I'm gone from the room and walking down the corridor again and once more pressing that button to call the elevator and I need to get out of this place. Right out. Away. Far away. I can't go home. I can't face that cold empty place. I just need to be somewhere warm and somewhere comforting. And my mind drifts back to Spencer and how much I need to hold him and keep him safe. I laugh to myself as I step into the elevator car. I can't keep myself safe. How can I even think about protecting Reid from Flanders?

* * *


	9. Chapter Ambrose

Ambrose

* * *

Whaoh.

What a weird trip that was. Not what I was expecting at all. I open my eyes slowly because I can feel something isn't quite right and I wasn't wrong there. I'm not on my bed at home where I should be. I'm eyes up at a white ceiling with strip lighting surrounded by mutterings and bleeping and the smell of disinfectant.

I'm in a sodding hospital.

Slowly I look around me and see the worried looks on the faces of people around me. I lick my lips and take a deep breath.

'What the fuck am I doing here?' My voice is croaky and odd.

I see Johnson's face come into focus and he's not smiling. He's not frowning either. He just has his normal pissed off look on his face. 'Nice to have you back with us.' He tells me, but he sounds like he doesn't really mean it.

I push up onto my elbows and have a better look around, but my head starts to thump alarmingly so I lie back down again with a groan which might make people feel sorry for me. 'What happened?' I ask. My voice still feels wrong and my throat hurts. 'I need a drink.' I need a smoke too, but I don't think they'll let me have one of those.

Someone else talks to me now. A guy in a grey suit and a grim look on his face. 'Just lie down and relax Sam.' He says and I don't think I have much of an option. My stomach is shifting and churning.

'I'm gonna be sick.' And I turn my head and chuck up on the bed next to me. This causes a sudden flurry of movement as I continue to empty what little there seems to be inside of me. The cramps… 'I'm dying.' I moan. 'Oh shit. My stomach.' I turn fully onto my side and pull my legs up tightly to me in an attempt to stop it hurting so much and I know someone has a hand on my back now and words are being said to me, but it just feels like I am going to vomit my whole self up onto the bed next to me. I can see there is blood now and I can hear the words have gone from comforting to alarm and just as I decide to squeeze my eyes shut so I don't have to see the clots and slime I am bringing up I slip back into where I just came from. For a short while I can feel hands on me again. Then they have gone and it is just the bleep, bleep, of the machines next to my bed.

-o-o-o-

I lie on the top of the bed in this small motel room I have booked into. I don't even take my shoes off. I won't be able to sleep. There is far too much churning around in my head. Faintly I can hear my cell phone letting me know there is a call, but I don't answer it. I can't move. I just stay as I am with my eyes shut to the world and try to pull all the events back into place. Give them some order, so I know where to start in the morning. I need to have it organised in my mind, but it's all becoming one confused jumble.

I need to know what happened to JJ. I need to talk to Will. I have to talk to the team and offer what little support I am able to give and that right now doesn't feel like a whole lot. If this had been a case I was on then I would be able to deal with it. Push it around and keep some sort of focus on it all, but this is all far too personal. I need to prioritise but how can I put one person I love above another? Above my work? I can't do it. I don't know _how _to do it. This is why my marriage failed. This is why I hardly get to see Jack. This is why I can't deal with the Reid issue or whatever is going on with Sam. It's too personal. It hurts too much.

It's a surprise when I open my eyes again and see daylight seeping through the gap in the curtains. I must have fallen asleep at some point in the night, but it doesn't feel like I have. I've still not worked out what I am going to do next. Running away from it isn't an option. I'm not Gideon. I'm not going to just abandon everyone.

-o-o-o-

It's mid morning and I've been allowed to sit up in bed for the first time. My back is agony. I'm not sure what is wrong with it. I will have to ask someone, but not now. Rossi has come to see me. They asked if it was alright if he popped in quickly to see me and I am glad for a fresh face to see. I want to know everything I have missed. I need to know what has been going on as I slept so I can fill up those empty places. Most of all I need to know who this person is I am dreaming of all the time. I decide to ask Dave.

'You should do what they say and take the pain killers.' He is saying as he sits in the green chair next to my bed.

I bite on my bottom lip knowing in a way that he is right. 'I can't. I need to be able to think. I can't think with those things in my system.'

He nods at me and picks up the newspaper. 'You want me to read this to you?' He sounds a bit confused. Maybe a bit worried.

'Yes please. Front to back. Don't miss a thing.' I shift slightly in the bed trying to make my back more comfortable.

'Why don't we just chat? You can read this yourself later.'

I watch as he puts the paper down on the table next to my bed.

'I need to ask you something.'

I see his hand stays on the newspaper for a short while as he turns his head to look at me. 'Ask away.' He says, but I think that is a worried look on his face.

'There are a few things.' I look away from him and to the clock on the wall. I watch the seconds tick by for the count of ten and then I talk again. 'Was I in a relationship before the accident?' I don't want to see his reaction to my words.

'I don't know. You keep your private life rather private Spencer.'

'It's just, just I keep having a dream. Not the same one, but the same general theme and it's always the same person.' I need to be cautious with my words. 'I was wondering if I know this person.'

I see movement out of the corner of my eye and I take a quick look to see what he is doing. He's relaxed back into the chair again. This is good. The question hasn't un-nerved him at all.

'I'm not sure how I can help you if I don't know what this person looks like. You had a visitor. Before. When you were eerr "sleeping". Maybe that is who you are dreaming about?'

'A guy? It was a guy wasn't it.' I ask, but really it's not a question. 'Do you know who he is? I have a face in my mind and in my dreams, but I don't know the name.'

He rubs his hand over the short beard on his chin and just looks at me for a while. 'Flanders.'

It was all he had to say. It seemed to kick my brain back into action. A million memories flying at me at the same time.

'Oh god.' The room is starting to spin with the sudden rush of every feeling and emotion I seem to ever have had. 'Floyd? He was here?'

And as things begin to darken around me and I am pulled back into a deep darkness I feel someone holding me and lying me back down again and hushed voices which slowly fade as new feelings and sensations fill me.

-o-o-o-

I look a freaking mess, but that's ok. I don't need to look too good for stage one. I've washed most of the blood off my face and put a different shirt on and now I am at the Homeless Centre to make my primary introductions to this Amos bloke. I followed him here, at a distance, from the church. That is one place I don't want to enter just yet. I am silently hoping that they will give me something extra for when I need to. Yes, I have been in a church before but that was different. That was back then. This is now and this is why I am scrawling my name in a book and introducing myself to the woman thing behind the counter. She starts asking me questions I don't rightly feel like answering right now.

'Do you need to see a doctor?' She asks. Her eyes taking in the mess my face and hands are in.

'I'll be fine.' I mutter back at her.

'We have a free counselling service if you need to talk to anyone.' She informs me.

'I just need something to eat and somewhere to sit for now.' I tell her and then turn my back and look around the room. There is a huge mixture of different people; some obviously living on the streets and some slags and junkies. I don't want to sit with anyone though. I need to be alone for this. I walk to the counter where they are handing out plates of some kind of slop and take one giving the woman standing there a slight nod and then I find a quiet corner where I can sit and watch. I don't intend eating this muck, but I sit at the bench table and slide my fork around in the mess on my plate. I sensed someone sit down opposite me but I'm ignoring the interruption until he speaks to me.

'Go home Floyd.' The voice says and so I slowly look up to see who the hell it is who knows me. 'Get up and leave.'

I frown at him and put my fork down and look at the bloke with the auburn curly hair and what appears to be a kaftan. This is not Amos, but it is still a face I know from a long, very long distant past.

'This has nothing to do with you.' I snap back at him.

'It has everything to do with me Floyd. Go home.'

I shift in my seat slightly and push my plate to one side so that I can lean on the bench with my elbows and get a deeper look at this person. 'I'm not going home and you are not going to get in my way. Get up and move. Leave me be.'

He sucks in on his bottom lip but his eyes are fixed firmly on mine. 'You should have come to us. We would have helped you. We don't like to see one of our own fall this low.'

'You.' And I jab my finger at him. 'Kicked me out. You denied my requests to appeal. How in fuck's name can I come to you for help? I don't need your freaking help. Get out of here and leave me alone.'

'Clawing your way back to us slowly Floyd. In actuality you've been doing a damned good job. Obviously with the occasional hick up. You still have a job to do. Go and do it. He needs you.'

'You have no fucking idea and I shouldn't be talking to you. Go away.' I prod him with my finger and it sends a tingle down my arm.

'You don't need to do this.' He swats my hand away from him. 'I can't stop you, but this _will _be the end. You know that don't you?'

'I do need to do this and no you can't stop me. I still have a job to do Ambrose and I intend doing it. I've not forgotten why I am here. Now go and leave me be.'

'Your job here will be voided. You will have no job. Not with us and not with them. You are a fool if you think we will let you do what you have planned and still be on our list.'

As he stands up I lean over and grab at his clothing. 'What do you mean by "voided"?' I pull him towards me. 'He is mine Ambrose and you can't take him from me. I have worked for an eternity to get this right; you can't take that from me just as I am about to complete! I need to do this so I can get back to him. You fucking well know that.'

'You are a failure Floyd. You have messed up continually.'

Now I am standing too and my face is right up close to his. 'Where was my backup? Where was the help when I needed it? He is still alive. I've not failed.'

He pushes my hands off him and takes a step back. 'Your whole existence is an error. You will be eliminated along with everything you've done if you insist in carrying out this task.'

'And if I don't? Then the other team take me.'

He smiles at me. 'That being the case Floyd, give up now. Either way you are going to mess up. Either way you will lose what you want. Go back to your friend Daja and tell him you won't do it. It really is that simple.'

'You know I can't do that! For fuck's sake why are you doing this? Why can't you just leave me to do my job?'

'Eat your food and think about why I can't do that. As said, I can't stop you personally. Not actually physically prevent you from doing what you have planned, but I will see that any reward you get for it is removed. I will hand the job over to someone else. Some blond female who can do the job properly and not continually mess up and go moaning and whimpering asking for another chance.'

'Fuck you!'

'No Floyd, that is one thing you will never do. Eat up friend. Think about what I said.'

And he is gone….slowly back into the mix of people then gone completely. Shit. I wasn't expecting them to get involved. I look around and see that Amos bloke I have to despoil and it makes me feel freaking sick. 'Thank you Ambrose. Thank you so fucking much for the help and support here.' I'm still standing and so I just turn and leave the building. I have to think about this now. I don't know if I should re-talk things over with Daja. I stand in the street and feel like killing and fucking everything and anything which comes near me. If I don't do what Daja said then I'm screwed…and not in a good way. If I do what he says I am still screwed and still not in a good way. Fuck it.

-o-o-o-

I check my phone to see who it was I ignored the night before. It was Dave. I give him a quick call back but his phone is turned off now. He must be in the hospital. I should go back there. I have to sort things out with Sam and I have to see Reid. I am still trying to get my head to adjust to the fact that he is awake. Even if he doesn't want to see me right now I still need to be there for him. They will be doing tests I would imagine. He can't possibly have been gone from us for so long and there be no side effects. I also need to call Will. I have to sort things out there, but again the phone is turned off. I expect he needs to be alone for a while. I know I would be feeling that way. I _am _feeling that way.

A shower is what I need now. I walked groggily to the small white bathroom and turn on the water and slowly peal off my suit, which is now looking a bit crumpled. I should go home and change. I can't be seen in this state. Firstly though a shower. It feels wonderful. The water is slightly too hot, but it feels good washing away all the dirt and stress from the day before. I wash my hair in the complimentary apple shampoo and scrub at my body under this steaming hot water and I don't care that soap gets in my eyes. In fact it feels good. I can feel something inside me releasing like a flood gate and though I would deny that there were tears, I will insist that it was only because of the soap, there are tears and they feel good. I'm just unsure if it is a release of gratitude that Spencer is back with us, or sadness that we have lost JJ. I don't want to try to work it out though. I just want to feel clean again.

As I step out of the shower and wrap a towel around my waist I hear my phone going again. I slip once in my haste to get to it but catch it before the caller, who is Dave, hangs up.

'Hotchner.' My voice still sounds tired.

Dave gives me a slight run down on what has been going on. He tells me that he has been sitting with Spencer. He tells me that he remembers Floyd but didn't get the chance to question him on it before he drifted back to sleep. He also tells me that the case they were working has been transferred but he, Dave, will be needed to go through everything with them first. He doesn't want to leave Reid alone. Garcia has just arrived and will wait while they take Reid down for the tests I suspected they would be doing.

'We need to find Flanders.' I tell him as I finger dry my hair. 'Are the lab results back yet? Are there any matches?'

'_Test results came back positive match for the blood we had tested earlier. It's not a match for the case though. He's not who we are looking for.'_

I was sure it was him. I _know _it was him. I have no idea how he managed this but I do know that we have to find him. Have to talk to him. Find out who the hell he really is and how and why he knows Spencer.

-o-o-o-

The hand grabs my arm as I walk by a small side road and drags me into the shadows. His voice hissing in my ear before I even get the chance to turn and face him.

'What the hell do you think you're playing at?' It's Daja.

'Ah – just the person I wanted to see.' I've had enough of this shit. I've done with it.

'Why were you talking with Ambrose?' His mouth is tight against my ear and his hands pulling me tightly into him.

'I wasn't. He approached me. Let go.' I pull away and now turn to face him. 'I was hoping to see you. I need to tell you something.' And now I grab hold of his arm and drag him further into the darkness. 'I'm not doing your dirty work for you. You want the guy dead then you'll have to do it yourself. This isn't what I do. I am here for collections and to carry out what I started. I don't have to partake in your new game Daja and I won't. I will take what I want when I want and that is the end of this sordid little subject.'

'You will lose him if you refuse. You will feel pain such as you've never felt before.'

I raise my hand palm forward. 'Go on then. What's stopping you? Take him. He will be lost to me either way. At least by pissing you off I will get half a smirk in before you take me back.'

'It's not that simple.' He whispers at me.

'Yes it fucking well is! Either punish me or fuck off. I'm not having you drag me down any further.' I let go of him. I count silently to ten and when he's still not done anything I snort a laugh at him and walk away.

* * *


	10. Chapter 10 Home

Home

* * *

It's the noise that brings me back to here again. I can hear Garcia's voice sounding worried and the mutterings from someone else. I open my eyes just a slit and turn my head in the direction the voices are coming from.

'He's awake. He's coming with me.'

I try to get my eyes to focus properly on what is going on. More people are arriving now and voices; though they are trying to keep them hushed are getting raised in anger. There is one though, one voice which is drawing my attention to its owner.

Floyd.

I want to call out to him, but I don't. I lie there and watch what is going on in the room and I try to listen and make out exactly what is going on here.

'You can't just take him home!' This voice is now raised above the others.

'Try and fucking stop me.' Floyd this time in a low hiss. 'He is mine and I'm taking him now.' And he is walking towards the bed and his eyes are looking down deeply into mine. 'Time to go home Spencer.' But I want to tell him that I'm not ready and just find myself nodding slowly.

'Help me.' I tell him and put my hand out to him. There is some desperate need deep down inside of me which I cannot fully understand yet; a need to be with this person. I know with him that I will be safe. He will look after me.

-o-o-o-

I don't care what this blond woman is saying to me. I equally don't care what the staff are saying. I am going to get Spencer out of this place and with me. Daja can forget the any deals he thought he had. Ambrose can fuck off too. I just want this person with me. In my sight; at all times and I can't do that with him here.

'You can't!' And Garcia, I think that's her name is touching my sleeve.

'I can and I will. Don't touch me. If you want to see he is OK then help me. Getting in my way is not going to help anyone. I'm taking Spencer with me now. Your opinions, anyone's opinions they can keep to themselves. He is mine.' I shrug her hand off me and grab hold of Spencer's arm. 'You're OK with this babes?'

He nods. He looks at Garcia but he nods. He is good with this.

There seems to be a slight problem with his walking. And standing. That woman is still standing there hovering trying to stop me. 'Help me then. You are so concerned about him, then you help me.' She virtually flies forward and one of Spencer's arms is over her shoulder. One is over mine and so it doesn't really matter is he can walk or not. I'll bloody drag his arse out here if I have to.

'You are making a mistake.'

I am told with great authority.

'Fuck off.'

I tell him with equal force in my voice. I'm not going to have people pushing me around anymore. I don't know why it went on for so damned long. This Garcia person and I slowly make our way out of the room.

'You have to sign paperwork.' I am told.

'Screw you.' Is my reply. His head has dropped forwards and I think maybe he has fallen back into that dark place I meet up with him sometimes, but that's alright. He can be there if it helps him heal. As soon as I have him home things will change. I will have the control back again and Daja and Ambrose can fight it out between them. I'm having no fucking part in their games anymore.

The elevator pings and the two of us drag him into the large car. I watch as she presses the ground floor button and we are moving again.

'I'm really not sure this is wise.' She says. I can see the worry on her face.

'I can care for him fine.' I tell her. 'We need to be together.'

'I'm sure this isn't legal you know.' She moves some stray hair off Spencer's face.

'Do I look like I care?' I scowl at her and she looks at me for a second or two and then her eyes go back to Spence.

'You have medical training?' She is looking at my Spencer with a look I don't much like.

'He will be fine and if you're going to talk to me then look at me.' I am though looking at Spence who is in white hospital pyjamas. He will be OK. I have him now. She looks up at me with a frown on her face.

'I can help you.' She looks a bit sure of herself.

'Great.' I respond as the elevator comes to a stop where we need to get out. 'Get me a cab.' I pull Spencer so his weight is on me and away from this odd looking being I am in the elevator car with. 'Now would be good.' I snap and she nods and moves away slowly from us as I begin to half drag him out of the car.

If we are being watched I don't notice. I don't look around to see who is there. My focus is now on getting him out of this damned place without dropping his useless body onto the floor. I am smirking. I know I am. I love him when he is like this. Totally under my control. There really isn't much better. I will explain something to you, cos I just know you're dying to know. Later though, cos I need to get my boy home first. The strange thing is that no one tries to stop us leaving now we are here. I'm certain that telephones are ringing like crazy though. That thought puts a smirk on my face.

She does as she is told though and gets a cab. Then thinks she's going to come along with us.

'No.'

A simple word and all I need to say, but I add

'Fuck off.' Anyway. Just so she gets the message. I lift Spence into the cab and slide in next to him at the back. 'Go away.' I tell her as she moves in again and then slam the door and tell the cabby to just drive. I have no intention of going straight back to the apartment in this cab. I know that blond tart has taken the number down, so I get him to just drive around for a short while. I end up changing cabs three times. They can probably still trace us if they try nice and hard, but it at least gives me some breathing space. It seems that Spencer has been sleeping through most of this. Only awakening to stagger from one cab to the next.

Home at last though. Well Danny's old home and my new one. The place I will care for him and keep those other shits away from him. I drop him down onto the bed and go and get a drink and a smoke. I need to unwind a bit now and so that is why I am standing in the bedroom doorway looking at him.

I just stand and look at him. This is actually something I can do for hours. Just look at him. I know deep down that what I have done here is going to cause a fuck load of trouble. Trouble from every bloody angle you can think of, but for once…but not the first time I've been a selfish prick and done what I wanted and not what I was told. He is dreaming. I can see his eyes darting back and forth under his eyelids and I wonder if I am part of that dream. I crouch there in the doorway with my smokes and a bottle of drink and look at this thing I treasure beyond anything else and I try to figure out exactly what it is about this person which drives me to such lengths and I don't know what I will do when it finally ends or why I let it go this far in the first place. It wasn't like I was told to do this. I went looking for him. I followed him then befriended him when he was still a young boy. I must have seen something then. I had to beg them for this. I had to get them on my side. See my reasoning behind it without them seeing what I had planned for him. They should have known. I've done it all before. They could have stopped it way back then, but they didn't. They let do this and now they don't like it. Not my fault.

I go into the room now and lie down on the bed next to him, dropping the near empty bottle on the floor. I roll him over onto his side and curl up behind him and wrap my arms tightly around him pulling him close. I'm tired again. The day hasn't turned out how I expected it to. I thought I'd be out there trying to get into the pants of some do gooder priest. They will come. Daja will arrive at some point soon. I know it. I need to be properly awake for him. I need to get back what I used to have. For now though I plant a kiss on the back of Spencer's neck and breathe in those special smells.

-o-o-o-

'I couldn't stop him!' Garcia I think has been crying. I don't want to deal with this. I wanted Reid to be here safe when I arrived but that was maybe too much to ask for. 'I got the registration of the cab.' She is muttering, but I know if this Flanders has taken Reid then a cab registration isn't going to be a whole lot of help. 'I'm sorry.' She is saying now, but I can't listen to this.

'Trace it. I want to talk to the driver.' I tell her as I walk towards the elevators. There is nothing I or anyone else can do until we've found where Flanders has taken him. Until then I need to sort things out with Sam. God I am so tired. I feel so empty and numb to it all now. Too much. Just too much. The elevator doors slide open and I walk into the lone comfort of the small car. I push my hands through my hair and try to make myself look reasonable, but I don't think I'm making too good a job of it. When the doors slide open again I am relieved to see that the place is quiet. Quickly I walk to where Sam was yesterday and I can see Johnson standing outside with a mug of coffee in his hand. He looks and me and nods and I nod in return. 'How is he?' I ask him.

'He is a lying little shit.' Johnson takes a drink from the mug. 'But I think he can leave now. The question is where he will be going to. I think the Child Protection lot still want him going to a foster carer of some description, though who in their right minds would take Sam in, I don't know. Sorry sir. I didn't mean that to sound offensive.'

I frown slightly. I know what he means and I don't know who would be able to cope with the child.

'He needs twenty four seven supervision.' Johnson says and I nod at him.

'I thought I could help him. I wanted to help him. If he goes into care, even at his age then it is the end.' I scratch at my neck as I try to work out what to do. I took the boy on as my responsibility and I'm not going to just give up on him. 'Maybe he needs to spend some time in a rehab centre.' Really I am thinking aloud but it still seems like the only logical direction to go in at this point. He needs to be somewhere where he cannot get his hands on narcotics and obviously he is getting them from somewhere. 'I need to talk to him.' I tell Johnson who just nods at me again and moves slightly out of the way so I can enter the room Sam is in. Just before I open the door I turn to him again. 'See what places are available for him please.' And once more that tight Johnson style nod and he is walking away. I push open the door and walk in. Sam is sitting on the edge of the bed looking grumpy so I just go over to him and sit down next to him .

'I thought you wouldn't come back again.' His voice is low and almost conspiratorial.

'What you did was very stupid Sam.' I tell him, but I find my arm has wrapped around his young shoulders and I am pulling him close. 'Where on earth did you get that stuff?'

He sighs, but I feel him relax against me. 'I got it from some guy outside the school. It didn't cost much really. Not for what I thought it was.'

'How much?' I ask him. I close my eyes and listen to his small voice.

'I was pretty desperate though. You know? I really needed something and he didn't really hurt me too much. He was sort of gentle I suppose, but…' and a longer deeper sigh this time. 'He didn't use protection and I was sort of worried about that.' I close my eyes tighter against the images Sam is giving me. 'Just him and a couple of friends. It seemed OK when it happened. I didn't think anything was wrong really, but I dunno. They didn't give me what they said they would so I guess I was fucked in more ways than one.'

I don't know how many times I've gone over this with Sam before. I have talked this over and over with him, but he still can't see why he shouldn't be behaving like this. 'Maybe it was something you needed to learn.' I say gently to him. Damnit I don't know what this child does to me. I should be angry. I should be shouting at him. I should be doing something other than comforting him. I know I should be, but I can't stop it. The way he leans on me pulling in all the comfort and love I am willing to hand out and I know, don't I, I know that this is just his way of getting out of trouble once more. 'I am going to book you into a clinic for a few weeks Sam.' There I've said it now. It made my head spin and made me feel sick but I said it anyway. 'Johnson is looking for somewhere.'

He is pushing away from me now. 'What do you mean?' And I look into those deep dark eyes and I try to find defiance and anger and all I see is sadness.

'You need to be somewhere so they can help you. I can't help you Sam.'

'Help me with what?'

I turn so I can see him properly. 'With your issues. The drugs. The other things.'

And still I am looking for anger. I can cope with that. I can deal with that, but not this. Not the look of horror he is giving me. The look of betrayal. 'You said you'd look after me Aaron.'

'It's all part of it Sam. They are professionals. They can help you.'

He pulls his legs up onto the bed and pulls the hospital gown over his knees and curls up into a tight ball on the bed. 'I thought you liked me.'

Damn. The child is crying. I know it's false. I know he is playing his little game but again I am pulled straight into it. I reach out and touch his shoulder. 'I do like you. I like you a lot. That's why I care.' And I do care. I do like him. In a way I have a greater bond with Sam than I do my own son. I reason that this is because Jack has people to love and care for him. Sam has no one. Only me. I need to get out of this room. I can't think straight when I can see those eyes and that slightly open mouth. I can't get my head straight if I can see the tears. Quickly I leave the room and stand outside leaning on the wall. What the hell is going on?

-o-o-o-

There's one born every minute. Aaron is one of them. Damn him. I don't want to go to no freaking clinic. I like the life I have with him. He is so damned easy to manipulate. How he ever got to be the boss of those BAU guys I don't know, but man, I can't go to a sodding clinic. I need to work him a bit more. Pull him in deeper. Things were going OK until those bastards sold me some duff shit. OK didn't sell it to me as such, it was more of a trade and one I am more than willing to conduct again, but next time I will make sure I get the right stuff. I was fucking stupid. Damnit all; first I get lumbered with Johnson and now this! I lie down on my side and make a big deal of crying and sobbing. I'm sure he must be able to hear me. They must be able to hear this racket on the next damned floor. Why isn't he coming back in again? Shit. Come on Hotchner I need you. I need to be with you slowly taking from you your sanity. That won't work if they try to "cure" me.

* * *


	11. Chapter 11 Floyd’s POV

Floyd's POV

* * *

I'm awake before Spencer. Funny though. No nightmares. He was just sleeping and breathing that comforting heavy way you do when you are sleeping soundly. I uncurl my self from him slowly, giving him a quick kiss on the back of the neck. I have him. He is mine and nothing is going to take this from me now. Do they realise what I have gone through to get it this far? Those damned FBI boys. They think they know. They think they know what the game is, but they have no fucking idea. I kneel at the foot of the bed for a long time; leaning on my elbows just watching Spencer sleep. He is perfect. Spencer is the most perfect being I have ever set eyes on. I thought for the longest of times that Anthony was that person, but in the end, when it finally came to it I didn't hold back. I snapped his neck and left him to rot. The very idea of doing that to Spencer is abhorrent.

Fuck me – I lie even when I am just thinking of things. OK not abhorrent, maybe I could do it if it came to the crunch, but that time's not arrived yet and as I see things now, that time's not going to arrive any time soon.

There is a big book. Well no, it's not actually a book, not something which you can sit down and read, but more of a thing which comes into being when they decide to make you a mark. It's really hard to explain, even to myself, but that is what controls when the end will come and who will be there until that time. They assign someone as a protector to these special people. To make sure they do what they are meant to do. It doesn't always work out too well. Well in my case it hasn't worked out to well. They realised their mistake after they assigned Spencer to me. Then the bastards tried to go back on the deal we had. They cut the ties. They let him die.

I wasn't here for him. They had taken me, removed Spencer from me, but the bond was too strong. Even with the ties severed there was still enough there to pull us back again and once we are back then there is no preventing this. They let him die, but I'd already made my own mark in that fucking book and that said I was going to protect Spencer.

Right. Protection only goes so far. That doesn't mean I have to treat this person like a freaking flower. Actually it means quite the opposite. I can actually do what I want to him and he'll keep coming right back to me. The problem though now it seems that my bond to him is now his bond to me. He needs me as much as I need him and that's why I wont let Daja or Ambrose; Ambrose of all the fucks available! Yes bloody Ambrose can sod off too. I won't let them reassign him or me.

I have to be careful. I have to be oh so fucking careful. My ultimate goal isn't to live out an eternity in Hades, much as you might think it might be, it's to be able to go back to where I belong.

I push up from the bed now and walk away slowly backwards. I don't want to wake him up yet. I want him to heal and that's just what he is doing right now. Away somewhere healing his mind and body. His soul though, that's gone. Long gone; that belongs to me. I walk to the bathroom and stand in front of the basin and look in the mirror attached to the cabinet placed over the taps. I look long and hard at my own face and honestly, I do try to find a fault in it. I try to see something not as perfect as I know it is, but it's just not there.

'Fucking perfect.'

I say as I run my fingers over my reflection. Something that perfect isn't made in hell. However nice that might feel it's a bloody constant reminder of my own failings. Not that I really failed as such. Give someone free will, they act on it. They didn't like what I did with mine. That's not my fault; that is entirely theirs. They change the rules of the game, and that's what this is, just one big fucking game. And I have no bloody control over it. I have my set of rules I stick by. I can't please both teams, so I'll stop trying to please either.

I have a quick wash of my face and pick at the few scabs still there. I am healing fast. This is good. This is how it should be. I wonder now though if I can pass this on a bit to Spencer to help him heal fast too. I've tried it before and messed up.

I constantly mess up you know.

I just get so bloody angry with everyone. You try being me for a while and see if you can do this shit. I scratch at my teeth with my fingernails and suddenly I need to clean. This is a distant remnant from something in my past. They used to use it to control me. It was, I dunno, a way to keep me down and in order, but it didn't do much good really. It's just left me with this overwhelming need to clean things occasionally. I choose bathrooms cos I can lock myself in. Another thing I've dragged with me from the past. I feel secure if I am locked in somewhere with a bottle of bleach and a scrubbing brush. It still has the effect of calming my anger. They create you with something and then don't like it when you use it. Fuckers. Bloody typical of arses like that lot.

I run my fingers through my hair and scratch at something on my neck. I need to keep control. I need to keep him safe from them. They will know what I've done real soon, if they don't know already. They watch me constantly. A life time of being watched like big brother.

The first I knew they had arrived was the hammering on the door. Fuckwits; they'll wake Spence. The calls of 'Open up. FBI' didn't help much either. I moved quickly from the bathroom to the door and hissed at them through the reinforced wood.

'Keep your voices down.'

And unlocked it, keeping the safety chain in place and then pulled the door open to reveal a Miss Prentiss and Agent Derek Morgan. They flashed guns and badges at me which I decided to ignore. I know who they are, they don't have to make such a fucking fuss about it.

'OK. The door is open. What the hell do you want? And what in the name of the gods have you done to your hair?' Her badge goes away and a frown crosses her face as her now free hand runs over the mess which used to be her hair.

'Take the chain off and let us in.' Morgan's snarky self assured voice really gets on my nerves.

'You've not said what you want yet.' I snap back at him. 'Put the damned gun away. You'll hurt someone with that one day.' I am leaning on the door slightly waiting for him to do his big man thing and kick the door in.

It's the sweet Emily who speaks though. 'We need to search the apartment. Open the door Flanders.'

I close the door and remove the chain then open it again stepping in the way to block their entry. 'Wake him up and you are going to have to deal with me in a pissed off mood. Right now I'm sort of calm, but if you come in here pushing me around and trying to take him away from me then you will see a side of me you wish you'd never known. Do you understand me?' I am talking to them both, but looking at Emily. Behind Morgan I can see a gaggle of other guys in flak jackets and guns all ready for some freaking shootout.

'I understand.' She says to me in her girly "it's ok don't worry" voice which doesn't work too well on me. She'll learn.

I step back and let her in then put my hand on the gun Morgan is still carrying. 'Put the sodding gun away. He's in the bedroom, but don't you fucking wake him up.' Now I step back and let him in and I am looking at the guys standing outside. 'You lot can fucking wait there.' And I slam the door shut and turn and lean on it. I watch them both looking quickly at what they can see around them. Looking for signs of a fight. Looking for anything out of place.

'He's in the bedroom.' I don't really want them going down to the lounge. I've not properly cleared up yet. There is blood down there which I don't much want to explain to them. I keep still and watch as Emily enters the bedroom and then I follow. 'Don't touch him.' I whisper across the room as I see her hand move over to him.

'I'm just checking that he is alright.' And she is looking at me with those big eyes of hers. Damned woman. Morgan ignores what I said and is on his knees next to the bed feeling for a pulse and putting those dirty hands on what is mine.

'I said don't touch him.' And I walk further into the room. 'I've let you in. You can see he is alright, now you can fuck off again.'

Emily is still looking at me. She looks puzzled for a short while before she talks. 'We have emergency crews waiting. He needs to be in hospital.' She is sounding a bit sure of herself. I walk to the end of the bed and then climb aboard and crawl up next to my Spencer.

'I'll explain something to you.' I slap Morgan's hand away from Spence and then wipe it clean on the bed covering. 'Spence is mine. You are not taking him anywhere. He is getting better and he is getting better because I see fit to make him feel better. If I wasn't here he'd be on those fucking machines still. You need to be thanking me, not treating me like I'm the fucking criminal. I've not actually committed a crime, so unless you have something on me then you can now leave.'

Morgan is now looking at me as I lean slightly over Spencer in an aggressive protective manner.

'He has to be returned to the hospital and you need to answer to what you did to him.'

I lean in closer to what is mine and pull him towards me. 'No. He is going to be staying here. You know where he is and Emily is welcome to come and check up on him whenever she wants. Within reason. I've got nothing to hide from you, but you try and take him away from me you are going to experience something which you wish you'd never. So get out of my apartment.' I am looking at Emily. 'Take your monkey with you and piss off. Maybe get your hair seen to or something, but you're not wanted here.'

'That's not going to happen.' Morgan is standing up now but he is looking closely at what I am doing as I pull Spencer in even closer to me. 'You can't keep him here like he's your property, Flanders. He's not a dog.'

'I'll do what I bleeding well want to do.' They have a lot to learn. 'Wake him up then. Ask Spencer where he'd rather be.' I push him away from me and move back. 'Go on. Ask him!' Oh dear Emily seems to be looking reluctant to awaken him now but Morgan has his hands on him again. 'Get your hands off him.' I spit across at him. 'Em can wake him up I'm sure. You though need to keep away.'

I have this deep down dislike for Agent Derek Morgan. I'm sure it's the colour of his skin. I don't much like the taste of skin that dark. It's not a racist thing. I'm not much of a racist very often. It's more like where I come from the darker your skin the more vile you are. That thought makes me look at the backs of my hands with sudden curiosity. I still seem quite pale in comparison and I think that is why I don't mind Em touching him; she has very good skin. She is shaking him gently and saying soft words to him to try to rouse him.

'Spencer it's me Emily. Can you open your eyes? I need to talk to you. Reid. Please try to wake up.' She is muttering over him like some kind of incantation. I watch carefully. I really don't need this to go wrong so I watch real close and I'm ready to pounce at the first sign that things are going to go wrong here. I move a bit closer and run my hand down his arm. He is lying now on his back and the dreamlike happenings behind his eyes have stopped.

'Hey Babes, it's OK.' I whisper at him. I really need him to wake up calm and happy…not spooked and scared shitless. That latter state will just not do now. I waft my smells over him and watch as his hand reaches out for mine. Wonderful. He plays my little game even when he is asleep. His eyes open slowly and I watch him as they flicker across the room. 'Emily is here.' I tell him; still running my hand gently over his arm. 'She wants to make sure you're alright.'

'Hey Spencer.' That soft voice of hers again and strangely it sends odd tingles across the back of my neck. 'How are you feeling?'

He looks at me. Almost as if he is asking permission to talk. I crack a smile which doesn't quite reach my eyes but it seems to do the trick. He turns his head and looks at Emily.

'Hey.' A soft voice he has. A voice I want to suck right out of him. One word and he has me needing him more than I have done since I brought him here. I need them out of the apartment quickly.

'Do you know where you are Spencer?' She's asking him. Quicker questions woman…hurry up. I feel his hand squeeze mine and I give it a gentle reply and run my thumb over the back of his hand.

'Floyd?'

'He is here. Spencer, I need to know that you understand where you are and what's going on.' She still has that soft voice and now the way she is leaning in and the light is shining off her pale skin makes me feel somewhat randy and hungry. I chew on a thumb nail and give another half smile.

'I err, I'm with Floyd. You don't have to worry Emily. Everything will be alight now.'

My god! He couldn't have gotten it better had I told him what to say.

I watch her move her hand away from him. I see Morgan take a step back and I see the puzzled looks on both their faces.

'The man molested you.'

Morgan's damned voice pipes up and I see the confused look on Spencer's face, but I keep quiet. I need this to come from him.

'No, no he didn't. You've misunderstood.' He still sounds sleepy. 'I let him. You don't have to worry. He will look after me.'

Emily talks to him again. 'You need to come back to the hospital Spencer.'

'No…no I don't want to. I can stay here. Floyd is here.'

Well done Spencer; well done babes. Now tell them to fuck off. I look at Emily and then at Derek. 'You happy now? Let him go back to sleep.' I move back in again my hands touching his face and his chest and his abdomen and well I don't touch him there yet. It can wait a short while. I climb over him and onto the floor between him and the Agents. 'You can leave now.'

It is a relief when I close the door on them again. It took a lot of effort from me to get them to do what I wanted and it not appear like they were being coerced. I think for now it will do. I can't stay here though. Not for too long. The effects will wear off and they will wonder what the hell happened. I put the locks back on the doors and lean on the wall getting my breath back for a while. My head is pounding. There is a nasty buzzing going on in my head and that familiar tingle of an oncoming nosebleed is there but my need to have Spencer over rides it all. I walk back to the bed room and look at him just lying there on the bed.

'Get up.'

He looks at me with big puzzled eyes. 'Floyd?'

I've no time for explanations and wooing him to my will. 'Kneel at the end of the bed.' I snap at him as I wipe the first dribbles of blood away from my nose. 'Quickly. I need you now.' All my time of pulling in my temper and trying to appear what they would class as "calm" has done my head in seriously. I've no time to talk to him about this now. I just need to do it and then I can relax. 'Hurry up!' I shout at him as he slowly moves down the bed and slides off the end. I move in and take him roughly. No time to be nice. No time to be gentle. He'll get used to it. He'll learn to like it. It just takes some time adjusting.

'Thank you babes.' I whisper as I slide my tongue over his spine.

* * *


	12. Chapter 12 Home Once More

Home Once More

**a/n: I posted this yesterday then removed it and did a big rewrite. Let me know if it needs to be done once again. **

* * *

How did this happen?

I am standing in the hallway of my house taking deep breaths trying to figure out exactly what happened back at the hospital and why in the name of hell Sam is here with me.

'Go and have a shower.' I say into the air, and he does. He brushes his hand down my arm and walks away and up the stairs. I can't do this. I keep telling myself that, so why am I not listening to what I am saying? Why do I let his child manipulate me the way he does. How does he do it? Even standing here watching him disappear into the shadows at the top of the stairs I know this is wrong. I know I should have sent him to a rehab centre. I know all these things, so why is he here? I just stand for a while and look at where he just went out of sight and then walk to the lounge. I pour a nice double of something golden and sit down on the couch and stare at photographs on the mantle. There is still one of Haley up there, though god only knows why. One of Jack and I and I think I should get a picture of Sam up there too really. A long deep swig from my glass and I tip my head back and close my eyes. I have asked that no one calls me unless it is an emergency. I need to spend time with Sam. I need time with him alone and no interferences, but I still need to know what the hell is going on with Reid. I can't just walk away and leave him to the mercy of Flanders. That damned name. I know there is a connection between him and Sam, but if the boy denies knowing him there's not a lot I can do.

Obviously I can have the DNA tested, but on what grounds? That these two people have the same last name? I don't know if I am thinking straight and if this is something I need to know or if my mind is making connections where there are none. I'm unsure how long I'd been sitting there for when I heard it. A wet noise followed by the sweet smell of apples. I lift my head again and open my eyes.

'My god Sam!'

He is standing in front of me fresh out of the shower…bubbles popping slowly on his shoulders, completely naked.

'I'm done.' He tells me with his hands down by his side.

'Cover yourself up!' I am standing now and the room does an uncharacteristic spin. I want to grab him and drag him up to his room, but I daren't touch him. 'Go and get dried and dressed.' I turn from him in an attempt to get out of the room as quickly as I can. It's not the fact that it is a naked person; I've seen plenty of those in the past, it's simply that it is a naked Sam.

'I thought you'd want to see.' His voice is right behind me as I try to get out of the lounge. I stop and turn to him, keeping my eyes firmly on his face.

'See? See what?'

His arms come up and he looks down at the scabs and marks up both arms. 'That.' Then he suddenly turns so his back is to me. 'And that.'

'Oh god.' I don't want to see it but my eyes are pulled into looking at the marks and bruises covering his back. I can see where hands have held him down. I can see finger mark bruises on his skinny back and across his buttocks. I close my eyes trying to block it out. I don't want the images in my head which are flashing up there. 'Please Sam. Go and get dressed.'

'Can you see what they did to me?' His voice is odd and shaky.

'I can see it. I'm sure they saw it in the hospital too.'

He turns back to look at me. 'Sure they did! They touched me every damned where! They used a rape kit on me! They didn't have to do that to me.'

'It is standard procedure Sam. They did have to do that. You should never have put yourself in that sort of danger. What were you thinking of? Please, go and get dressed them come down so we can talk.'

He shakes his head at me. 'I don't want to talk. I'm tired of talking. I just wanted to show you. You think it's easy. You think I let them fuck me so I could have the drugs.'

'Because that is what you told us. That is what happened.'

'But they did more than just fuck me! Can't you see that?! I told them over and over again to stop. That they were hurting me, but they carried right on anyway.' I can see tears forming in the boy's eyes and I reach out and wipe them away with my fingers as the tears pop out and trickle down his cheeks. 'Then they paid me with duff goods.'

'Sam. Please you need to get dressed. I cannot have you walking around the house naked.' I hear him sigh and sniff and I close my eyes to him again as he walks past me and back out into the hallway.

'I just thought you should see.' A sulky muttered voice now and I listen to the sound of his feet in the stairs before I open my eyes again and go back to my drink which I tip back in one.

-o-o-o-

I should have expected it.

I should have seen it coming from a mile away. Not that I would have been able to do anything to stop it, but I had no warning. We had been together on the floor of the bedroom. Entwined and safe for a few hours. I could feel his breaths against my neck and I could feel his skinny body tight against me. It was too good. It couldn't last. Nothing good ever does. It always turns to shit. That though is part of my nature I think. Things just aren't meant to be good and if they seem to be, then I'll do something to twist it and fuck it up again. This time I was hoping I could stop it happening. If I refused to bend to their will then I could maybe have something good for a while. In fact I did. This was good. Very good, but it didn't last. I fell asleep. It doesn't happen often but when it does you can guarantee that the world will turn to shit as soon as I let my mind relax. And that's what happened. I was happy. I was relaxed. I was off guard.

The first I knew it was going wrong was the smell. I could smell it. Something vile and rotting. Then the sounds. The sounds of wings. The sounds of quiet muttering. I kept my eyes shut for as long as I could. I didn't want to accept that they had done this to me yet again. I tried to hold on tighter to what I had in my arms but really I knew it was too late.

'Get up.' The voice hisses in my ears and I feel the drool running over the side of my face. I slowly open my eyes and see I am in darkness. I see that Spencer has gone and though I have struggled for as long as I can remember to keep in line with these bastards I know it's the end now. I've nothing left to fight them with. I move carefully onto my hands and knees and then push to stand up.

'Why now?' I call out to them. 'Why do this now? You've had an eternity to do this in, why have you left it so fucking long!?'

'We needed our entertainment too. But we're bored of you. We've been talking; us and them, we had a long talk about you. They really would like you back you know.'

The voice sounds like it is coming from all around me. 'I'm happy to hear that.' I snap at the shadows.

'But we want you too Floyd. You have become quite a vicious little bit of filth so we came to an agreement. Them and us. We will leave Spencer alone in exchange for you.'

Oh shit. This isn't good. This is very bad. For me at least. Good for Spence. Rock bottom fucking bad for me. 'What do you plan to do with me?' I am still talking to things I can't see.

'Storage, until we need you again.'

Oh fuck…oh crap. 'I am more use to you doing something.' I tell them. 'You will be wasting my skills, my talents, if you do that.' Then they really put me in my place. In more than one way.

'You have no talents apart from you can fuck young men. That is something we can get anyone to do Floyd.' And now that horrible stench of wind blows in my face and coils around my body and there is something pulling at me and dragging at me and touching and moving me and the surface I was standing on has changed and the coldness seeps through my body and into my soul. I feel the manacles snap around my ankles and wrists. I feel the collar slide around my neck and I am no longer where I had been. This is a cold empty place and I am secured tightly facing the wall and little hands are already touching me and moving over me. I kick back at them for a few minutes but I know it's pointless so I go down to my knees and for now accept my fate. Who knows, I might even enjoy it.

Tomorrow things might change.

Tomorrow they might decide to use me again.

Tomorrow could be a long way off yet.

-o-o-o-

I woke up lying on the floor alone in a strange apartment. The first thing I noticed was the smell. A horrendous stench of rotting flesh. Bad decomp coming from somewhere. Opening my eyes slowly, not knowing what I'd see and running my hands over myself looking for wounds. I ache all over. It feels like I've been to the party from hell with my brain hammering in my head like a severe migraine was heading my way quickly. From where I am lying though I can see nothing extraordinary; just the wooden floor of the room I am in so I roll carefully onto my back. The familiar feelings and sensations run through me. At some point recently I've had "fun", I just can't remember it. Now lying here looking at a white ceiling I keep deadly still and listen for sounds. Somewhere there is a tap dripping. I think it's a tap. I hope that's what I can hear, but there is nothing else. Slowly I push up so I am sitting and I look down at myself. Hospital pyjamas by the looks of things. I put my hands to my face and inhale, half expecting the smell to be coming from me, but it's not. I can smell something though; a deep musky smell which I feel I should recognise but can't place. Again I just stay still and listen, and again all I can hear is the steady sound of something dripping. I need to get to a telephone and call someone. I need to find out where the smell is coming from. I need to remember how on earth I got here. I rub at my eyes with my fingertips and again get a waft of the smell on my hands. Looking around me I can see I am in a bedroom. It is neat and ordered. No signs of a struggle or of much at all really. I use the bed just behind me to hold onto and push my way up to stand. I wobble for a little while and just stand looking around me. There is something very wrong here, that much is obvious and whatever it is isn't in this room. I turn now and look at the partially open door and the shaft of light sliding through the gap. I bite down on my bottom lip and look again to see if there is a telephone in the room. I can't see one so my only option seem to be to leave the room and see where that smell is coming from.

I pull the door slowly towards me standing slightly behind it as I do so. Nothing happens. No explosions. Nothing jumps out to grab me, but the smell gets stronger. I walk out into the passage way and take a slow look around. Still nothing looks out of place. There is a small bench against the wall at the end and two other doors leading off. The other end seems to lead into a big room and this; I think is where the smell is coming from. I decide to check out the other two doors first. Both on my right as I walk down the passage. Standing staring at the white painted door tells me nothing. I do what I've seen Hotch do a thousand times before and I place just my fingertips on the surface of the door. Still it tells me nothing. It's not hot, it's not vibrating, it's just a door. My hand goes down to the handle and I push it down and gently put pressure on it so that the door opens. Which it does, smoothly and silently. The smell though. It hits me like a tidal wave. I step back away from it and just look at what is in the room. It's a bathroom. I think it's a bathroom anyway; my eyes are watering from the fumes billowing out of it. It might have once been a white sterile looking room, but now it looks like something, someone, more than one, person exploded in it. There is blood and bits everywhere that I can see from where I stand blinking at the scene. My eyes drift over the surfaces I can see. Bits, there are bits of rotting flesh stuck to the walls and ceiling. Things draped over the toilet bowl and basin. Splattered up against the glass wall of the large two man shower unit. I can't see the tub from here and to be honest I don't want to see the tub. I grab the handle tightly and pull the door closed again.

I feel sick. I can feel the bile rising and my stomach protesting, but this is obviously a crime scene. I can't contaminate it. I look at my hand still holding the handle 'Damnit.' I say in a whisper, or was it just in my head? I'm not sure. Now I seem to be standing in front of the next door, which I figure is probably the kitchen. There is no handle on this one. I can just push it open. Again I place my fingers on the cold painted wood and sigh inwardly. Doing this didn't really tell me much last time. I doubt it's going to be a whole lot of help this time either. Slowly I push it open. The smell hits me again, but not as bad and I can't see any immediate reason for the smell here. The light is on and as I walk slowly and carefully into the room, which is indeed the kitchen I look around for what the smell is coming from. The room once again is white. All the surfaces but one are clean and cleared. On one though there is a smashed coffee pot. The liquid long dried up into a brown stain. I don't want to go too far into the room. I have nothing on my feet. The smell though seems to be coming from the bin over in the back corner and this is also where the sound of the constant dripping is coming from; the faucet over the sink. I am tempted to go and stop it but I don't for now. I back out again letting the door swing shut on its own. Apart from the bathroom and not knowing where I am there is something else bothering me, but I can't yet put my finger on what it is. I stand and look at the small bench against the wall then turn and walk back towards the bigger room at the end.

This room has pale green walls and a big white couch set about central. There is a small coffee table and a big television against the wall. Apart from that and the bits of flesh stuck to everything the room is empty. There are no pictures on the walls and no shelves. There is a remote control in the middle of the glass topped table and that is all. I don't go right into the room, I just stand and look at it and that niggling thing in the back of my mind suddenly comes to the front.

'No windows.'

Again I'm not sure if I said this aloud or not. There are no windows. There is no exit door and there is no sign of a telephone anywhere. I turn and look back down the passage way to the bench at the end. That's where the door should be. Where there hell is the door? I walk quicker this time back down to the end and put my hands on the wall behind the small bench. It is cold. I tap at it with my fingernails and it feels and sounds pretty solid. It doesn't sound like there is a door behind it. Quickly I return to the bedroom. Again there is no window but there is a big light oak closet against the wall pressed up into the corner. I walk to it and pull open the doors. All caution blown to the wind now. It is full of clothes, but they aren't mine. There is a strange musty smell coming from them. I run my hands over the fabrics of the pants and shirts hanging there; mostly black pants and red or white shirts. Some with long sleeves some sleeveless. They look like they have been hanging there for an eternity. There are some boots resting on the bottom, but not the sort of thing I would wear. I don't _think _they are the sort of thing I would wear anyway. I push my hands through the stacks of hanging clothes thinking that maybe there is a way out at the back, but of course there isn't. It is a solid wooden back the same wood as the rest of it.

Now my attention is turned to the bed. It is huge. A big four poster king sized bed. The covers on it are slightly messed up as though someone has been sleeping on the top of the covers. I put my hand on the fabric of the deep dark red velvet covering hoping it will jog my memory. Was it me sleeping there? If it was why did I wake up on the floor? I grab hold of the top cover and pull it back.

…and I really wish I hadn't done that. The sheets are white where you can see them and stiff with dark dried blood. That might be why I was on the floor and not the bed. I pull the covers back again to hide the sight of the stiff dried out sheets and the strands of hair. It doesn't look like my hair though. It's dark, very dark and straight, in long messed up clumps on the edge of the pillow. Whatever happened here happened a while ago. All of this happened long enough ago for the blood to be dried, except for in the bathroom and in places in the lounge.

I walk back to the lounge knocking my knuckles against the wall opposite the one with the doors as I go. It all feels and sounds pretty solid. No hidden exits that I can find. I pick up the remote control and find the button with "power" written under it and point it at the television. Nothing happens. I shake it and try again; still nothing. I turn the thing over in my hands and pull off the cover over the battery housing. It's empty.

I see now that my hands are shaking as I put it back down on the table. My thoughts now go to trying to get out of this place. I look at the bits of flesh and small bits of bone stuck to things in the room and my stomach hitches again. What the hell happened? And why don't I remember any of it? The last thing I remember was being in the hospital. Had I been here with someone else? Did I do this to them? Will this happen to me too? I wrap my arms tightly around myself and walk backwards slowly out of the room and then I turn and go back to the bedroom.

Maybe it's a nightmare. Perhaps this is some drug induced dream I am having. I know it can't be real. I am sure of that much. I stand and look at the bed again for a short while. I need to sleep. If this is a dream then I need to sleep and try to wake up, but I cannot lie down on the bed. I look at the floor where I woke up not so long ago and sit down. Then I lie down again where I had been previously and close my eyes. I recite poetry in my head for I don't know how long until I feel at last I am drifting off the sleep again.

* * *


	13. Chapter 13 The Night

The Night

* * *

That night after we'd eaten pizza and watched some television together and after Sam had finally gone to bed, I was able to go to my room and just relax. I showered, put on a clean pair of dark blue pyjama bottoms and climbed under my covers to see if it was possible to sleep. I had strong doubts about it. For a long time I just lie there and stared at the shadows creeping across the ceiling. Then I turned onto my side and closed my eyes. That doesn't stop me from seeing over and over again the state of Sam's back and arms. I know I have to help him, but I can't do that if I don't get at least a few hours sleep. I must have fallen asleep though because the next thing I remember is me waking up and I know immediately that there is something wrong. The arms wrapped around me shouldn't be there. There is a faint light in the room and as I look down to my chest I see a pair of hands I would recognise anywhere. I don't move. I close my eyes again and try to work out what to do next. I can't keep rejecting the boy. I can't keep pushing him away, but when I feel his body push up closer to mine and I can feel his warm young body pressing against my back I know I have to do something to stop this now.

'Sam.' I say it with as much calm in my voice as I can and then wait for a response. My answer comes in the form of his arms tightening around me and his body wriggling against my back. It is now that I leap out of bed. 'What the hell are you doing?!' and now I don't sound so calm. I turn to look at him lying there curled up in my bed – naked again.

'I was lonely.' And his eyes are wide with – I don't know what with, but I don't like it.

'You should be asleep. You should have something on. You must never do this again Sam. You can't do this.' I am backing away from this scene. He props himself up on his elbows.

'What's wrong with two people seeking out comfort from each other? I know you're lonely. I'm lonely too, so why can't we do this?'

'Because it's wrong Sam!' I am going to carry on and give him a lecture but he cuts me off.

'My dad used to. He used to hold me. He used to comfort me. Why wont you? You don't like me do you? Why am I living here if you hate me so much? Everything I do you object to. I can't get anything right with you! I might as well be in the damned clinic.'

'Your father?' he's not mentioned other family members before. I grab my bathrobe off the back of the door and quickly put it on and tie the belt.

'He didn't mind if I snuggled up with him. Actually he liked it.'

There is a discomforting half smile on his face when he says that and all sorts of wrong images are gathering in my mind. What the hell has this child been through in just sixteen years? 'We can talk about this tomorrow. You need to go back to your room. I'm not your father. We obviously have different ways. Very different ways. You can't do this Sam. I don't want you coming into my room in the night unless you knock on the door first and unless you are clothed.'

He slides off the bed and stands with his arms crossed. 'Fine! I'll go. I'll get out of your life. I know when I'm not wanted. I thought you and I had something. I thought you wanted me.'

I am really not sure what he is meaning. I don't want to know what he is meaning. Tomorrow I will arrange for him to see a counsellor. 'Go back to your room.' I snap at him now. 'We will talk about this tomorrow and Sam, you are wanted. Just not like this.' I try to, I really try to make him understand. I watch him walk out of my room and I see the marks on his back again and so help me god I want to call him back and just hold him. When he is gone I close my door again and this time I remember to lock it. I want to know more about his father though. I want to know what the hell sort of relationship he had with him.

The rest of my night is taken up by listening to the sounds Sam is making in his room. Gentle crying with the occasional sobbing and it's breaking my heart.

-o-o-o-

When I open my eyes next I'm in darkness. I can still smell the rotting though so I just lie there and accept that this is likely not a nightmare. I look over to where I know the door is, but this is a deep pitch blackness. There is no light out in the corridor either. I need to find the light switch. I don't know when or how the lights got turned off and I'm not going to give in to panic; not yet anyway. Carefully I get to my feet and with one hand out in front of me I feel my way towards where the door should be. It's there. I have no problem finding the door, what I do have a problem with is finding the light switch. Breathe deeply. Stay calm. It feels like an eternity before my hand finally finds the switch on the wall to the left of the door. I click it on but nothing happens.

'No.'

I whisper to myself and try again.

And again.

But still nothing happens.

'Oh god.'

My breaths are suddenly too shallow and I am drawing in oxygen in small shudders.

'Stay calm. Find another switch.'

But I know what was out there. I can't convince myself that everything is alright. I can't say that there are no monsters in the dark because I know there are. I know. I've seen what they left behind. The sweat is prickling across my brow now and I can feel it running down my back. I close my eyes in the darkness and stand with my left arm leaning against the wall. At least this is solid. This is real. I wonder if there is anything in the kitchen. In a cupboard. A flashlight maybe. The chance seems pretty slim but I take a deep breath and with my hand against the wall so I don't lose my way I walk slowly. Every step is taken carefully. I take one step and then I just stand and listen. Just that dripping sound from the kitchen, but it seems to be echoing around now and when I take my next step I wonder for a second or two if I am actually going the right way.

My hand eventually finds the bathroom door. I stand for a while with my hand on the wood and wonder what the hell went on in there. The wood feels cold under my fingertips as I carefully take two steps to get me past the door. I can smell that vile stink wafting around me as I slowly make my way towards the kitchen. It doesn't take that long to find the next door. I listen for a while and once I am sure I can't hear anything I shouldn't be hearing I push the door open with my left hand and move my right around the wall just inside searching for the switch. Why can't I find it? It's the obvious place for the light switch to be but there doesn't seem to be one. I'm feeling horribly dizzy now and realise that I've been holding my breath for I don't know how long. I take a long deep lungful of air and then carefully put my hands on the top of the work surface closest to me. I decide to slowly make my way around the room like this, but firstly I crouch and open the cupboard door in front of me. Breathe Spencer breathe! I don't want to put my hand in there not knowing what might be there, but if I'm going to find something to help me out then I have no choice. I move my hand down to the floor and then forwards until my fingers are touching the kickboard. Then move them slowly up and over the surface at the bottom of this cupboard. Nothing. Absolutely nothing. No spiders, no rats, nothing attacks me. There is nothing. The cupboard is completely empty. In a way this is good. In so many others this is very bad. Quickly now I pull open the next door and again I cautiously put my hand into an empty space.

My breathing is coming fast and shallow again. They can't all be empty can they? Surely not. There has to be something. I am now on my hands and knees crawling around this room pulling open door after door to find nothing. There doesn't even seem to be dust on the surfaces. I know that there is broken glass over near the sink. I move more carefully when I feel the first bit of glass embed its self into my finger. I've been careful though and it's not in too deep. Getting it out isn't a problem but I can't see if I made it bleed. I slide my hands over the floor trying to find the door to the cupboard under the sink. My fingers are on the melamine surface when I hear it. A clattering sound from back outside the kitchen. I freeze in the position I am in. Someone is out there. Someone is in this place with me. Another noise; a scraping sound and I am standing up now my eyes straining to see in the dark, but of course I see nothing. Moving sideways slightly to avoid the glass on the floor I make my way quickly to the kitchen door. I have no intention of opening it. I just want to hear what is going on out there. Does someone have a light? Are they trapped here too? Maybe they think they are alone. Maybe its whoever brought me here.

Voices! I can hear muttering of voices and I pull open the door and make my way out into the corridor. Again I realise that I'm holding my breath and I force myself to breathe. I stand in the dark and listen. I can still hear them, but I can't make out what they are saying. It's too whispered. Too muffled for me to be able to make it out properly.

'Hello?'

Just one shaky word I call out.

'Is there someone there?'

I ask and as a reply there is more sounds and I am running forward. My feet making hardly a sound on the wooden floor until it happened. At first I thought I had managed to get glass in my foot in the kitchen, but as I put my other foot down I realise that's not what is going on here. My initial reaction is to keep moving forwards. It was a mistake. The floor feels like its been covered in shards of glass and I am running right into it. I think I probably let out a howl of pain, but I'm not sure. I do know that I am falling forwards though, my feet sliding out behind me and though I know I shouldn't; I know this is going to hurt, I still put my hands down to stop my fall. My knees crack down onto the wooden floor and it's not glass I am feeling in my hands now. There are spikes on the floor and I have just stuck them straight through my hands. Something slices through one of my knees and I feel yet something else slide through the flesh of my right calf.

Now I know I am howling in pain! I am pinned to the floor and I know I am bleeding. I need to be quiet. I need to be able to pull myself together and take this. I try telling myself it's nothing. It's only a scratch. You are over reacting. I have to hear the voices. I can't let them know how much they have hurt me. I kneel on the floor with tears of pain running down my cheeks and try to take even breaths. This is OK. This is nothing. Just designed to scare. Just there to disorientate, but I cant help remembering the shards of bone and bits of flesh and I wonder if this is what happened to them too. Did they panic? Did they stay calm, or did they stay kneeling on the floor trying to listen to the voices.

Maybe there were no voices, but I know this pain is real. I try to pull my hand off the spike and I make little whimpering sounds as I slide it off slowly, slowly. I can feel the metal sliding out of my hand and with a nasty sucking sound I pull it free.

I have to get back to the bedroom. I have to go back to my safe place, but first I have to unpin myself from the floor. My other hand is now slowly released but I still don't move. I kneel and wrap my arms tightly around me and again try to see what is out there in the dark. There are voices still, but I don't know if they are just in my head or not. I need to pull the thing out of my knee. I need to get the thing out of my leg. I need to move! I have to get out of here now.

* * *

**a/n: due to lack of interest this fic finishes here. If you want more let me know and I'll think about it.**


	14. Chapter 14 Little Angel

Little Angel

**a/n: contains icky stuff.**

* * *

A small seeping wetness covers this hard floor I kneel on day after day and night after night. They have taken from me any luxuries I used to have in my 'home' and replaced them with damp and chains and more than a small amount of deep stabbing pain. The clothes I arrived in are long gone. I have a length of old cloth wrapped around my hips but it really doesn't do much to cover me up. Not that I have a nudity taboo of any kind, but you know a bit of coverage would have been good. I am feeling the cold. I am feeling the heat when they stick those red hot needles under my skin. I can feel the pain from where they whipped my back and the soles of my feet. There is no ability to numb it like I have had before. This is home ground. Here I am just the same as everyone else. I sleep lying on my side with my arms wrapped around me and my knees drawn up tightly to my chest. I need to be able to survive this. I have no idea how long they will do this to me for.

Should I scream and shout and let them have their jollies and only squirm occasionally, or should I pretend this is nothing – go ahead do what you want, it doesn't bother me? I'm not sure which direction to take them in…of which will get them to finish with me soonest.

'Hello Little Angel.' A voice says to me from the shadows. I was going to try to sleep but it seems they have other games to play first. Little Angel is the name they have decided to call me. Which is a lot better than some of the things they could have come up with. Really it lacks imagination, but they said it suits me because only an angel would be this good looking. Which of course is perfectly true.

I feel I could cope with this new shit a bit better if they were sexually orientated games they wanted to play with me. At least that way I could close my eyes and try to get some enjoyment out of it, but this isn't that sort of thing. I can't even pretend to enjoy this and to he honest, which is rare, so make the most of it, torture has never really been my thing.

Oh…I really shouldn't be giggling to myself, but they have rolled me onto my back and the thought of me not liking torture has put a smirk on my face and a small sound escaped my lips which might well have been the beginnings of a laugh. What I meant to say of course is that I don't enjoy being on the receiving end of torture. I'd like to know why though. They are not asking for information…not that I have any. It really does seem to be just for their own sadistic pleasure.

Today's game though soon wipes that smirk off my face. They pull at my chains until they are tight and I can hardly move and then they drag in a brazier and branding irons.

Now this is going to hurt like fuck only knows and though I'm never going to admit to any form of dislike to anything they do to me I think this is going to be a struggle. Depending of course when where they are going to stick that glowing red thing…at least I have the small, very small comfort of knowing it's not going up my arse cos I'm held quite securely here on my back.

'Are you ever going to tell me why you are doing this?' I ask these nasty deformed dark creatures and I don't expect an answer, but it's always worth trying.

'We are preparing you Little Angel.'

Now that was _not _the answer I was expecting.

I'm watching what they are doing with the branding irons. There seems to be just the one they are heating, which is a good start I hope. 'Preparing me for what?' Now I am at a loss over what this is all about.

'Oh not for me to say, but someone will come and discuss the matter with you later. Let's get started shall we. Smile for the banding iron Little Angel.'

And they smack it down just above my navel.

Fine, I'll admit that I screamed. I screamed like a fucking kid. Have you ever had the word 'DEVIANT' branded on your stomach? No? Well let me tell you then that it hurts like nothing I've felt before and you are talking about someone who can take a bullet and not flinch. I can drill holes in my own head to drain the freaking blood out, but this, this is something else.

I have no idea how long I'm left for. They didn't loosen the chains so all I can do is lie here with this searing pain and try to think up interesting ways to kill the bastards for doing this. When someone does finally arrive it's not really someone I have much interest in talking to. I don't look at him. I don't need to see him. I'd know Daja's voice anywhere. I sense that he has crouched down next to me. I get a waft of his smell, so I grit my teeth and wait for what he is going to say.

'I want to make a deal with you Floyd.'

At least he didn't call me Little Angel. 'I can't imagine you have anything I want.' Well apart from him dropping dead or releasing me that is.

'Well listen anyway. You might be surprised.'

'I'm listening.' Sure I'm curious. It seems he might be going to tell me what the fuck this has all been about.

'As you know, I think you know Ambrose took your Spencer. You did know that didn't you?' I don't bother answering him. 'Well this is the thing Floyd; I would rather like that young thing for myself.' Now I turn my head to look at him. 'But Ambrose is being very stuffy about handing him over. He seems to want something in exchange.'

'You want Spencer? What has this got to do with me? You removed any remaining bond there was there.'

'But I know you too well Floyd and I know how you like to keep your boys safe. I know you would give your life for your boy.'

I look at him and frown.

'Right the deal goes like this. We release you. We swap you for Spencer. You go home with all dark marks by your name removed. We both get what we want.'

'Fuck off, I'm not doing that.' This is a trick. I know it's not going to be as easy as just walking away of close to a life time of shit and being forgiven. I know Ambrose wouldn't do this. Something else is going on.

'It really is a catch 22 situation for you Floyd. Either way we will get him.'

I lick my lips and request he explains.

'They would like you back you see. Obviously they would. You are one of them. You don't belong here. It looks bad for them that you've been here so long and have been unable to behave enough to go back. They have something we want…we have something they want.'

'So why not just hand me over?'

'We can't do that; you have to volunteer your self to them.'

I blink and look at him again. 'You are saying that you want me to volunteer myself to swap with Spencer?'

And he smiles at me and nods. 'I knew you would see it my way.'

'Fuck you Daja, I'm not doing that.'

'You my little friend are in no place to argue with me over this. I know full damned well that you still have some link with the boy and I know full well that you would give your life for him. Don't even try to argue with me on this one. I know that you bonded with him Floyd.'

'Fuck you!' I can't concentrate properly with this fucking burn on my stomach.

'The thing is Little Angel, that if you are here and you refuse to do what we tell you to do we will kill you oh so very slowly and painfully and if during that process you still refuse to do what I've requested and you do indeed die, well we all know what happens then don't we?'

'No, you can't have him. I won't let you have him Daja. What the hell did he ever do wrong? Leave him be, you have me. Play your sodding games with me.'

'No, no, no Floyd, you see if you look at it our way, I have one of Ambrose's Angels and he has one of my sexual deviants. We really do need to swap. It would be for the best you know.'

'I'm not doing it.'

He stands up and looks down at me. 'That's fine. Killing you will be fun. You will die for nothing though cos I'll still get Spencer because you, silly boy, were foolish enough to bond. Did we not always warn you against such things?'

Silly little man. Though I don't tell him that. 'Do your worst Daja; have your fun cos I'm not doing what you want.' And I really do mean that you know. I'm not letting this bastard have Spence.

-o-o-o-

Both of my legs are pinned to the floor. I have to quickly decide which to remove first. I put a small amount of pressure on the leg with the spike through it to see if it will take my weight as I pull my knee free. It hurts, my god does it hurt but I don't seem to have too much choice here. I try to block out the sounds of voices. I don't want to think of those now and so slowly oh so very slowly I try to lift my knee off the glass in my knee and it is around about this time that things go wrong and across this pitch darkness I am in something even darker arrives and I feel myself pitch forwards onto my face.

I don't know how much longer it was until I opened my eyes again, but I am lying here now curled up on the bedroom floor staring across the wood flooring. It is light again. I have no idea how I got here and the longer I am awake the more confused I am getting. I lift my hands to my face to inspect the damage but there is nothing there and so slowly I feel around the rest of my body for the damage which I know was there earlier, but there doesn't seem to be any. I know it happened, or was it just a nightmare and this is the real? Slowly I roll over onto my back and pull my knees up tightly to me and start staring at the ceiling. I then resume my inspection of my hands. There is definitely no damage, but I can see behind my fingernails that there is dried blood. I didn't notice that before. Was that already there? I look now over to the light switch on the wall. I need to test it. I need to know if I can turn off the light. Slowly I sit up and now I look down at my feet. I run my fingers over them wondering what the hell really happened. Here too are signs of blood behind my nails and between my toes, but there doesn't seem to be any actual damage to them. It doesn't make sense. If it had been a nightmare then where has this blood come from?

I turn my attention for now back to that damned light switch and slowly get to my feet. I am expecting there to be pain but all seems fine. For about a minute I just stand there with my eyes tightly shut biting on my bottom lip. What if I turn off the light and it stays off? I will be plunging myself into darkness again and those things which were out there might return. When I finally get the courage to move I walk quickly. My finger lightly touches the switch. Very gently as my mind goes over all the millions of possibilities of what might happen if I click that button. A deep breath and I do it. Nothing happens. The light stays on and though I'm glad it's still light I get a twist of panic in my stomach. If it's not working now, maybe it didn't work earlier. I click it on and off a few times and then give up and look at the door. I know that I need to go out there. I know I have to see for myself that it didn't happen, but that twisting feeling has increased now. More deep breaths as I place my hand on the wood of the door. I stand and listen but there is nothing; just a complete silence. I can't even hear that tap dripping, but that might simply because the doors are closed. I lick my lips and think of the water in the tap. I have to get a drink. I will concentrate on that water and try not to think about what happened last time I went through this door.

My hand is now on the door handle and slight pressure downwards causes the catch to click and I pull it open slightly. Again outside the room it is light. I've only opened it a couple of inches but it's enough to know I have light and it's enough to know that I still can't hear the tap. I know, I am sure of it, that I could before and so I pull the door open a little more and I look down at the floor in the corridor. If there had been glass or spikes or whatever the hell it was before, now it has gone. I must have dreamed the whole thing. That is the only explanation. Two steps out of the door though and I am still staring at the floor. I know that when I last actually saw this floor that it was clean and almost polished looking. It's not now. There are scrape marks and stains on it now. I crouch down and run my fingers over some of the marks and I touch the dark reddish brown stains. It's OK, really there is nothing wrong. Someone is playing games with me, that's all this is. Then if this is a game how did they know what was in my nightmare? Was I shouting out? Was I talking in my sleep? I stand up again and walk to the kitchen door. I don't even look at the one going to the bathroom. I have no intention of ever stepping foot in there again. At least that's how I feel now. I am focused on that kitchen and the thought of getting a drink makes me lick my dried lips again. I am hungry too, but the smells in this place don't really make me feel like eating anything. I don't think I could keep it down anyway. Water is all I need. I place my hand on the kitchen door handle and push it down as I push the door open. Then I freeze and look at my hand.

'What the hell?' My voice is a very soft whisper. This door definitely had no handle before, did it? I just stand and look at my hand for a few seconds before snatching it away again. They or whoever put me here is playing with my head. I will ignore it. I will just carry on and pretend that the handle had always been there and so I step into the kitchen. It looks much the same as when I last saw it, except for a couple of cupboard doors are partially open, but that was me. I did that when I was searching for a flashlight, or any source or light I could find. My eyes though for now are drawn to the tap over the sink. It was dripping yesterday, but today it has stopped. That's fine. That's OK too. I can deal with the tap not dripping. Carefully avoiding the broken glass from the coffee pot I make my way over to it. The water in that tap is the only thing I can think of. I can imagine the cold comforting feel of over my lips and covering my tongue and sliding its way down my dry throat. My hand is resting on the tap before I even realise that I've arrived at the sink. I almost smile as I start to turn it watching for the cool water to appear, but the tap just turns in my hand. Like the light switch nothing happens.

'NO!' My voice is slightly louder this time. 'Please I need water!' I reach for the hot tap and turn that one too, but again nothing happens. I feel like curling up into a tight ball and screaming, but that's not going to help so I resume my search of the kitchen cupboards. Maybe I will find something now it's light. One by one I pull them open and one by one both top and bottom cupboard reveal absolutely nothing. I turn and look at the fridge. Maybe, just maybe there is something in there. A nice bottle of something ice cold would be really nice right now. My stomach gurgles at the thought of it and I am pulling open the refrigerator door in what can only be described as a wild panic. I am expecting it to be empty…really…I am. I am not expecting to see what I do. It takes a short while for my brain to process what I am looking at. Then I just nod at it and stare. A head wrapped in film, bottles of red liquid, containers of things with look like heart and livers and other internal organs. There is no water. Would I have taken water from here had there been any? I really don't know. I want to reach in and touch something just to make sure it is real. Just to be sure I'm not imagining this and as my fingers brush against a cold jug of something unknown I let out a yelp and pull my hand back and slam the door shut.

The lounge. I will go to the lounge. I move quicker now in my rush to get out of this kitchen but I am still careful to look at the floor as I walk. The room has not really changed that much. The only thing I can see which has changed is the large decanter of alcohol sitting on the small table. I find myself licking my lips again, but drink won't help me here. I know I will just get more dehydrated. There is nothing else different about here though. Nothing has miraculously appeared when it was dark except for that bottle. I back away. Though my mouth and throat are screaming for liquid that's not what I need or want. My thoughts now turn to the bathroom. That's the only place left and I don't, really desperately don't want to go in there. I look down the corridor towards the door and walk slowly. I place both hands on the door and rest my forehead on the wood. I can smell the vile rotting smells which tells me that what was there still is there. I try to remember what condition the basin was in but now again all I can think about is the fact that there might be some water behind this door.

-o-o-o-

I check on him first thing in the morning and he is sleeping at last. I don't know how long he cried for and I'm not even sure if it was real or just to get me to feel bad about what happened, but I know what I did was right. I leave his room again and go downstairs to get some coffee on and check that we have milk for cereals. I still have my bathrobe held tightly around me; milk and bowls are on the table and the coffee is beginning to gurgle when it starts. A hell of a scream from upstairs.

By the time I am at the bottom of the stairs the initial noise has changed to Sam screaming my name. I don't think I've ever moved so fast in my life. I am up those stairs two at a time and through his door before I even think of taking a breath. He is on the floor curled up tight just howling out my name.

'Sam I'm here.' And I am next to him kneeling on the floor.

'Help me Aaron!' And he opens his eyes and looks at me as the vomiting starts. I've seen people being sick before. I've seen far worse than someone bringing up the contents of their stomach, but this makes me want to join in. This isn't normal by any means. What he is bringing up shouldn't be in his stomach. Lumps of red, like raw meat are forced out from between his lips as he projectile vomits what looks like blood and lumps of flesh. I leap up again and move to grab the telephone off Sam's bedside table. I can hear him gagging and making the most dreadful noises behind me.

'I'm calling an ambulance.' I try to keep my voice steady and calm. I don't want to distress him anymore than he obviously is.

'No! No.' Coughing and gagging sounds. 'Don't. Just don't let them take me Aaron. I don't want to go.'

'You need to go to hospital Sam.' I am dialling the number.

'You don't understand! Please. I am safe here. They can't get me when I'm here. Please don't Aaron. Just stay with me.'

* * *


	15. Chapter 15 Blood and Water

Blood and Water

**a/n: ick**

* * *

My hand was on the door handle and pushing the door open before I had time to think too deeply about what was on the other side. The scene is very much like I remembered it; maybe worse now I know what to expect and am prepared. Almost prepared. Maybe, just maybe some of the blood had dried out a bit. Really it is hard to tell. I just stand in the doorway trying to breathe through my mouth. The smell is overpowering and I don't want to get precious water and then bring it all back up again. I place my left hand over my nose and walk very slowly into the room. I test the door; and happily it stays open for me. I don't think I could handle being closed in there. The taps at the basin have little splatters of blood on them, but that's OK, I really have to just ignore the entrails draped over the once white basin and remember that I am here for water. It feels as though I am moving in slow motion. Eyes flick from the taps to the floor. I don't want to stand in anything. I don't want random body parts squishing up between my toes. I am careful, so very careful and when I reach my destination I let out a long sigh of relief.

The thing now is though that I know that the kitchen taps didn't work. All the time I just stand here and look at them there is hope that these ones might work. With maybe more caution then is actually needed I move my hand forwards. I don't want to touch whatever that is in the basin. My hand is resting on the cold metal now and all I have to do is twist. One twist is all it will take. How difficult is that? I grip it tighter and turn it slowly. Nothing; the same as the kitchen, there is nothing. I want to scream at it. I want to pull the damned thing off the wall, but I don't; I just stand there with the thing still in my hand looking at the complete nothingness.

The shower. I can check the shower.

This time I'm not moving slowly. This time I don't check where I am standing and I don't care if bits are getting stuck to the bottoms of my feet. I just need water. There is an odd noise coming from somewhere and for a couple of seconds I pause and try to work out where it is coming from. As I stand and listen I realise that the strange noises are coming from me. I take a deep breath to try to calm down. I don't want to panic. I mustn't panic. Not now. Not now I've got this far. The shower cubical is large and had a sliding door. I put my hand on the white plastic handle and push it across. I was expecting more horrors to be in there but the inside of this is empty. I just look and try to control my breathing again. I must stay in control no matter how desperate I am getting for something to drink. Two steps in takes me within reach of the controls on the wall. I don't hesitate this time. My need for water is too much now. I turn the shower control dial and stand looking up at the dry shower head. It remains dry. Not a dribble. Not even one tiny drip. I sigh and turn around noticing now the bloody footprints I've left behind. I am sure I make that odd whimping sound again. It must have been me.

The tub. I've not looked at the tub yet. I quickly exit the shower leaving the door open behind me and walk to the side of this tub. I don't want to look at the mess lying in the bottom of it. The congealing mess of something someone once had inside of them. I don't _want _to look at it but I still am. I lick my lips and reach over for the taps. It will be messy. If and only if they work it will mix with the mess in the bottom. It will disturb it and make the smell even worse. I close my fingers around the tap and turn. Obviously the same as all the others, but I had to try. I couldn't not try and so I just stand there in the bathroom which looks like more than one person has exploded in and I can feel hot wet tears running down my face, but at least now I know. At least I can go and close the door and I know that there is no reason for me to come back in here again.

My feet make a slight squishing sound as I slowly leave the room, pulling this door closed behind me.

'I am going to die.'

This time I know that that was me. I know now.

-o-o-o-

Strange things are afoot as they say. I went with Morgan to check on Reid. He's always been strange and we didn't really get on that well at first but I wouldn't wish harm of him. When he didn't answer the house phone was when we decided to go over there and see if he was alright. That's not the only strange thing. I really don't know why I chopped all my hair off. I don't know why I've started smoking like a trooper and I don't know why I have this strange need to go to check on Reid. Something felt wrong though and I mean more wrong than it already did, but deep down, right deep down, I think it was more of a need to see Flanders than to see Reid. Yes I sort of feel bad about that, but there is just something about that man which draws me to him much more than it should. I've only just met him really yet it feels as though I've known him almost forever.

'Emily?' And a hand on my shoulder.

I turn and look at Derek and give him a small frown.

We are in the apartment which Flanders brought Reid to but there is no sign of him. Nothing really here to indicate that he had been here in the first place. The place is clean and tidy except for in the lounge where we are now. Blood. There is blood here, but it's not fresh, not something which had happened last night and I am just standing looking at it while Morgan pulls out his cell and calls for the CSU to come and check everything out.

'That's not Reid's blood.' I am very sure of this. I know it. I can almost smell that it is not him.

'Well I damned well hope not.' Derek snaps back at me, and follows up the call to the CSU with one to Hotch. We have to tell him that Flanders has gone; that Reid is missing. 'He's not answering. It's gone straight to voicemail.' And I can hear the concern in his voice. 'I'm going over there.'

I feel like my brain has tar running through it. Everything seems like so much trouble. I just want to go home and stand at my window and chain smoke and drink too much sweet coffee and wait for all this confusion to end. 'One of us needs to stay here and wait for them.' I mutter into the air. 'And where the hell is Rossi?' And now I turn to look at Morgan again.

'Let's just concentrate on one thing at a time Em. The CSU are on their way now. Probably pulling up outside as we speak. I'm going to check out the bedroom again.'

I nod at him and watch as he walks away and then turn and look at the blood on the rug and smeared across the floor. I know it's Flanders. I don't know _how _I know, but I do. The temptation to just run my fingers through it is over whelming and it is lucky that the guys from the lab arrive right then, because I do think that I would have done just that had they not walked in the door right then. I take one last look around and leave following Derek who seems to be in a strange mood today too. I just wish I could clear my head of all this mess and start thinking straight again.

-o-o-o-

I'm kneeling sitting back on my heels with Sam's head now on my lap. I heard the phone ringing but when I moved to answer it he started howling at me not to leave him again. The vomiting has stopped. Now he is lying on his back with his knees pulled up tight and his hands resting on his stomach. I don't think I've ever seen such blood loss on someone who is still alive. I am finding it hard to process all which has happened and still is happening. I should get him to hospital, but he is insistent and once again when the tears come I'm not able to resist his pleas. I can't leave him. I can't let go of him. I have to stay here and wait and I don't know what it is I am waiting for, but I know it's not going to be good and I know people, probably me included are going to get hurt, but I still can't pull myself away from him. I look down and see now at least his eyes are closed and I brush away some stray strands of hair with my fingers and try to breathe steady. I can see his chest heaving and I can hear odd gurgling noises and I think he is dying.

Hammering on my door pulls me out of my thoughts and I look over at the bedroom door. I can't leave him here. I think about picking him up and carrying him down stairs with me, but I don't. I decide to ignore the door. Let them go away.

'Hotch!'

I can hear my name being called by Morgan. I don't want him here. I really don't want the team to see this mess and so again I just ignore it. I hear him call my name a few times and then it thankfully goes quiet.

'Sam.' I say his name quietly and finger brush his hair. 'I'm going to move you onto the bed.' The response is a low moan and I think the word "no" but I can't be sure. 'You will be more comfortable on the bed.' And this time I'm sure of the word.

'No! I said no.' And then more coughing and deep down sounds as his breaths seem to be struggling to make it through whatever he has inside him.

'I want to help you Sam. Let me put you on the bed.' My voice is a whisper.

'It hurts too much. Let me stay here.' And this time he spits out some blood which runs in clogged lumps down his chin and neck.

Faintly in the background I hear the sound of glass breaking. Morgan isn't going to let me be. I sigh and close my eyes.

-o-o-o-

A gaggle of dark things come in to see me. I only give the slightest of looks. I have a feeling I know why they are here as soon as hands start to touch me. I keep my eyes closed and my mouth shut. They won't be gentle; they never are.

This isn't what I expected though. They are sliding cold dark hands under my back and then placing something on me just above my beautiful new brand and so I take a look at what they are doing. Had I not been totally restrained I would have done something about this latest prank. I really don't like the look of this one bit, but I'm not going to show them my dislike for what they are doing. What they have placed there is a small metal meshed cage. There is no bottom to it and the top had a small dip in it to place burning coals. I watch them in silence knowing what they are going to do but I keep my cursing in my head for now. Plenty of time for that later. The one in charge could almost, but only almost pass as human. He is taller and his limbs are nearly in proportion to the rest of his body. A fair reminder really of what happens when you fall too far down. I might be a complete bastard in the eyes of the cops and probably the Feds, but here my behaviour is all but normal. I think.

'Are you ready to just walk away from this?' I'm asked.

And I don't talk to him. I don't want him to hear anything in my voice with might betray how I am really feeling about this situation. I just slowly shake my head and keep watching him.

A little creature is not put in the cage via a small door in the side of it. It's sort of cross between a rat and a lizard. Maybe it _is _some weird cross breed; I dunno. What I do know is that it has very big claws and very big teeth; big yellow teeth, big red eyes and small tufts of grey fur. I can feel it walking over my skin. I can feel it sniffing at me and exploring where it is and I want to warn Sam, but if I do that then they will know and I can't have them knowing that part. They will find out soon enough. I can smell the burning now; the smell of the hot coals which will be placed in that dip and gradually heat up the metal of that little cage they have strapped to me and in the process heat up that damned creature which is licking at the sweat on my skin. For those of you out there who don't know what happens next I'll tell you. This thing will attempt to escape the heat and the only way out is down through me. I've only ever seen it done with rats before and I've seen this done enough in my life time to know that it's going to hurt and the likelihood is that I'm going to scream a bit. There is nothing quite like being eaten alive. I suppose this is an apt way to end my days here seeing as I've done it more times than I can count, but that by no means gives them the right to do this to me just in a vain attempt to get something I'll never give them. If this was a rat I could tell you an approximate time it will take for it to get inside me and start eating away at me to find a way out, but this isn't a damned rat as I said already and so I have no clue how long this is going to take. I am going to assume it will be quicker. I am hoping it will be quicker, or even not bloody happen at all.

They are standing around me and I think that they've noted the way I am grinding my teeth so I'm going to have to stop that. Oh and look, Daja has come to join in the fun. Bastard. Fucking bastard; he really should know me better than to think this is going to work.

'You still have a choice you know.' He crouches down next to me as he talks.

'I know I do.' I hiss back at him.

'We will get him either way. Why don't you just hand yourself over to Ambrose and be done with it.'

'Screw you.' And I clamp my mouth shut again as I feel the heat from the metal begin to burn my skin. My hope now is that Sam knows what is going on. That he will know what to do. I think this is going to hurt him as much as it does me, but if he keeps calm and lets it happen I think, I hope, that it will be OK. I am having to rely on Agent Fucking Aaron Hotchner now to keep things right. I don't like that. I really….

'FUCK!'

………Crap the bastard thing bit me. I wasn't expecting that yet. A hand pushes sweaty hair off my face.

'Don't you fucking touch me you son of a bitch!' Damnit. I try to pull back the pain and try to think of something else but I don't want to think of Spence. I don't want to think of Sam, but all I can think of is those tiny teeth nibbling away at me and the metal cage burning into me and I think this will probably only take a few minutes so I am going to take that time to let them know what I think of them and make a slight fuss.

'We can still pull it away Flanders. You just have to say "yes", such a small word but it will get rid of all this pain.'

'Daja, you goat fucking son of a whore, you will never get anything from me.'

'Yes I will, because you are a screw up and I always get what I want from you.' I'm not looking at him but I know he is smiling; I can hear it in his voice. For the love of the gods of Pluto will this thing hurry up and do its job!

'Not this time. I'm not letting you have him.' OK it's in now…it's started. I'll let you imagine me screaming my obscenities at these fuckers.

-o-o-o-

Again I can hear my name being called, only this time by Prentiss.

'Hotch!'

The word echoes around the room and I feel Sam shaking. I look down at him and his fingers are digging into his stomach. There is too much blood already to know if he is cutting himself with his fingernails but he makes his distress clear.

'Aaron! Help me! Oh shit, fuck, get it out of me! Get it out!' and then just a long scream which gurgles and spits its way up from him. More blood; so much blood, which is now spraying from his mouth in ungodly amounts. I can't move. I can't say anything I just sit there and watch and rock slightly back and forth as I kneel there. I always know what to do. I am always in control, but right now all I want to do is join in his screams of terror and pain.

I don't hear them coming up the stairs, but they must've heard the noise. Half of the street must have been able to hear this.

'Oh my god.'

I hear the faint words over the noises coming from Sam who seems to be going into some sort of convulsion and I look up and see Morgan standing with a gun in his hand with Emily standing next to him slowly re-holstering her weapon.

'Hotch man, what the hell is going on?' Morgan is suddenly moving forward towards me and Prentiss is moving to the bed. I can't answer him. I know if I try all that will come out of my mouth will be a scream. 'What happened?' He is asking now kneeling down next to Sam. I can see that Prentiss has pulled a sheet off the bed and is walking forwards ready to cover Sam up and at first I think it's because they think he is dead, but how can he be with all of the noise he is making, but how can he _not _be with all this blood. I can taste it at the back of my throat there is so much of it, but she just gently covers the boy over and it is only then that I realise that Sam is naked.

'Have you called for medics?' Morgan is asking me again and so I slowly shake my head. I wonder if he thinks I did this. Does Morgan think I hurt Sam? 'I call them now.' And I watch as he pulls out his cell phone and this means I am going to have to risk talking to him.

'No, no, don't.' It sounds oddly like my voice is coming from a million miles away. 'You can't.'

'We need to get Sam some help.' This time it is Emily talking. She too is kneeling on the floor next to Sam who has stopped shaking but now screaming for someone to get it out of him. I don't know what he's talking about. I don't know what he thinks he has inside of him. Just the pain? Something else? I don't know and so I stay silent again. I have to take control. I can't Morgan and Prentiss think I don't have complete control over this situation. 'Let me take him from you Hotch.' Emily is reaching forward with her hands to take him. She can't do that. I know she can't do that but I don't know how to make them understand something I don't understand myself.

'Just leave.' I finally say. 'Go and don't come back unless I call you.' I know they won't. I know they are going to call for medics and I know this is wrong. I can't let them.

'Who did this to him?' Morgan is looking at me with a questioning brow and I shake my head at him.

'No one. No one did anything.' I move slightly which causes yet more coughing and spluttering from Sam and wrap my arms tightly around him. 'No one did this.' And it feels like someone else is talking. 'Don't touch him. Don't come near us. Just leave.'

'You know we can't leave Hotch. I'm calling for medics.' Emily pulls out her cell phone and looks at it puzzled. 'My phone is dead.'

'I told you not to. I told you to leave. I know what I'm doing. Just get out of here. Get out now!' And I huddle over Sam protectively wondering what the hell is going on and why I can't just let Emily take Sam and get him help. Someone please tell me what the hell is going on? I feel such a deep anger for this intrusion. Right now I would die rather than allow them to take Sam from me. I would do that and it would feel right. Maybe that is what I have to do. Perhaps that is what this is all about.

I watch Morgan stand and pull his cell from his pocket and flip it open. 'What the hell?' He replaces it again and moves to grab the house phone, but I know that won't work either.

-o-o-o-

I stand with the dead house phone in my hand for a few seconds looking at the scene in front of me. 'Emily go check the downstairs phone.' She is up and running out of the door as I replace the phone on the side table. I walk over towards the door so I can hear better if she calls up to me. I am standing on the threshold of the bedroom and the hallway when it happens. It was so fast that I was unable to do anything about it. The door closes with such an almighty force that I am pushed out of the room and across the hall into the wall the other side.

And then the screams start.

* * *


	16. Chapter 16 Orifiel’s Forest

Orifiel's Forest

* * *

I walk slowly to the lounge and then stand and look at the small table. A glass has been placed next to the decanter. A small glass. My first thought is _you could have at least added ice for me_, and then I seem to be sitting on the couch ignoring the blood and mess and just staring at that liquid. It will probably kill me if I drink all of that. Is that what they want? I lean forward and touch the small glass with my finger tips. It feels cold; very cold.

I have no memory of actually pouring anything into the glass, or picking it up, but I am sitting here suddenly with it in my hand licking my lips. Just one tiny sip. Just to wet my lips. That would be OK. Just one.

Really does it matter? There is no other liquid in this place. Whatever this place is, so does it matter is I drink this?

Smell it first maybe. Just smell it. Make sure it's what I am assuming it is.

One glass. Just this one.

I can do that. Just one wont hurt.

The sensation of it sliding down the back of my throat, I'm not sure if it is pleasant or painful. Maybe I should have drunk it slower. Maybe I should try again? Slowly this time; just small sips.

How many do I drink? I have no idea, but by the time I am sliding sideways onto the bloodied couch I really truly don't care anymore. There is a nice feeling of nothingness flowing through me as my head hits the arm rest and ….

-o-o-o-

I'm standing at the edge of a shallow river. More of a wide stream really, and my hands are clasped over my stomach. It doesn't hurt, but somehow it also feels wrong. As I look down half expecting to see blood squirting from between my fingers a hand rests on my shoulder. It is an ancient hand and one I recognise. I move my hands from my bare stomach and rub at my eyes with the heel of my hands.

'So now what are you going to do Floyd?' The old dry voice asks me. And it is a very good question. What the fuck am I going to do now? I need to know what has happened to the others first. I can't carry on until I know for sure that what I _think _will happen actually does…or did, or will at some point in the future. I ignore the question for now but I don't move. I stand and look across the river at the deep dark forest on the other side. I can smell it. I can smell the leaf mould and the trees. I can smell the life forming over there and I know it wouldn't take much to just walk over this damned river, I'd hardly even get wet, but I can't. Not yet. I don't know what will happen when I get there. The last time I was there, before all this shit happened, back then, it was good back then. That is until things went wrong. I've not changed. I'm still the murdering bastard I was back then, so really there seems little point in going through that all again when I could stay here and just remember.

I look down at my feet. I have boots on. I have my low cut jeans on and my "whore" belt buckle. That's cool. I can see why they left me with these things. I run my hands over the ancient leather of my belt and close my eyes. Such sweet memories come flooding back at the touch of that hardened and now blackened skin. It was once soft and supple. It was once pale and warm.

A step sideways takes me out of reach of the old woman's hand.

'I'm not ready.'

I tell her.

'You never are though are you?' Her voice is a low hiss.

'I didn't exactly plan this.' I turn to look at the old woman. 'I never planned any of this shit.'

'Then you need to think back young man and try to figure out when it all fell apart for you.'

I shake my head at her words and start walking away from the lure of the other side of the river. 'I know when it fell apart. I can't go back and fix that. I don't want to go back and fix it. Unbelievable as this may seem to you, I actually like what I am.'

I know she is following me even though I cannot hear her footsteps in the grass. I know she won't leave me alone.

'You can't keep running away.' The voice comes from close behind me.

I walk a bit faster. 'I'm not running; at least not yet. I'm waiting.' I can feel such a pressure building up inside of me that I want to scream. I stop suddenly and look over to where the river is. I know the answer to my immediate dilemma is over there, but I need to wait.

'What are you waiting for Floyd?'

I frown and look at her. 'I need to know what happened to the others. You know. You know what happened. Why are they not here yet?' And the bitch smiles at me in such a condescending way I want to rip her fucking old head off.

'Oh they won't be coming here Floyd. If you thought you could drag your friends here and just walk away then you are very much mistaken.' She puts a hand to the side of my face. 'You really do need to cross the river this time. They knew about Sam.'

'I fucked up again.' I say to myself.

'That is because that is what you are Floyd; a sweet faced fuck up. Now go over and face them.'

-o-o-o-

I don't know how much time has passed. There is no way of telling the time here, but something suddenly pulls me back awake. I'm lying awkwardly on the couch. My neck hurts and my head hurts and my stomach is in desperate need to expel its contents, but I am able to ignore that because of that sound.

Water.

I can hear running water. I can hear it splashing against something. I am sure I can smell it. I try to move to get off the couch and end up just rolling off it and falling to the hard floor. Where is it coming from? I have to find it. There is no point in even trying to stand. My head would explode if I tried that and so I crawl. It is so slow. I want to move faster, but I can't. I think the sound is coming from the bathroom. Faster Spencer! Move faster! But it is still oh so slow. I am crawling though treacle. Each hand movement I watch and I beg it to move faster but it just won't do it. I am slowly getting there though. I think I am anyway. I daren't look too closely. The room is spinning slowly around me, but I know that sound is getting closer. I curse the fact that I had that drink. I was stupid. That was oh so stupid. Why did I do that? I could have just waited a little longer…and I am close now…so, so close. It is definitely coming from the bathroom. And I am saying 'Oh god.' Over and over but I don't think it is out loud, but it might be. I really don't know.

Finger tips touching the paintwork of the door. It is cold. Almost ice cold. I put the palm of my hands on the door and crawl my way up towards the door handle. With my eyes closed I grasp the metal handle and pull it down and push the door at the same time. Nothing happens. I try again. The door is locked.

And I am suddenly sober and standing and screaming at the door to open. I pull at the handle and I push at the door with my body and I am kicking it and punching at the wood and it won't open. I can hear there is someone in there. I can hear laughter and movement and water! 'Please, for the love of god let me in!' I shout at whoever it is.

I get a result.

Of sorts.

The result isn't one I wanted though.

It is silence. Suddenly nothing. The sound of water has stopped. The laughter has stopped.

'NO!' I howl out the word as I slide back down the door to the floor and wrap my arms tightly around me. Why are they doing this to me? I sit leaning on the door gently rocking and hitting my head on the woodwork. I think I am making strange noises now.

-o-o-o-

I don't hesitate this time. My anger levels are so high now that I just need to get over there and, and I don't know what the hell I am going to do. I won't know that until I get there and see what reception I will get. I take a deep breath and I am splashing through the icy water to the forest on the other side. If my feet get wet I don't notice; I can now only think about what I will do to the first creature who tries to stop me.

When I step out the other side I turn and look back at when I have come from but it is just a grey fog. Nothing to see and no way back.

I've not been here in almost an eternity and yet I still remember ever track and animal trail there is. I know exactly where it is I need to go. I still don't know what I am going to do when I arrive.

I take the small right hand pathway into the forest. If there had been two of us we wouldn't have been able to walk side by side. Actually there wouldn't be two of us. Had there been someone else I would be fucking or killing him by now. Assuming it was a him. I keep walking with my boots crunching in the leaves and twigs lying on the ground making my way speedily towards where I have to go.

As the trees begin to thin out and I know I am getting close. I push away the few branches hanging over the path in my way and step out into a clearing. A clearing with a huge lake in the centre of it and in the centre of that lake is a small earth mound, and on top of that is a keep. It looks the same as when I last saw it. Nothing really spectacular in its self, except I know what is housed inside. Leading across and over the lake is a narrow bridge magically it would seem, suspended there. Once again only room for one person at a time and once again that's not a problem. I'm not going to bother to give you measurements and tell you how high the bridge is or how far away the keep is from the bridge or even how long the damned bridge is because distance doesn't really matter. It could maybe be a hundred foot long and take me all day to walk it, or it could be over a thousand and take me only seconds. It's how things work here.

So with my right booted foot on the first plank of this thing I am off and I can tell immediately that this is going to be one fucker of a walk. They don't want me here. They don't want to talk to me, but I sure as damnit am going to talk to them. They messed with me. They took from me what is mine and I bloody well want it back again.

This place; I have time to tell you because of the time this walk is going to take, well this place is where I come from. Not from this keep, but Orifiel's Forest. This was my first home. This is where I was spawned. They like everything to be perfect. They give you little tasks to do and send you off to do them. Always nice things. So fucking nice it would give you a nose bleed thinking about it. Mine was as a protector. Which was good at first, until they, like fucking Daja and his crew, changed the rules. They take from you that automatic need to protect what you've been given and give you freedom – I think I might be about half way there now – anyway, this freedom allows you to make decisions which you wouldn't normally be permitted to make and my first decision was to fuck the person I'd been given to protect. He didn't mind. He loved it. Who the hell wouldn't love it? But that according to _them _wasn't the point. I shouldn't have done it. The fact that they let me do it in the first place, that they gave me someone to look over who was desperate to have his arse taken by anyone or anything for that matter didn't really come into it. I shouldn't have done it. I gave myself a bad reputation. They took my task away from me and gave me another. A very boring one. A female. I sort of got pissed off with this though and well…accidents happen. The task of protecting her didn't really work out for me. They hauled me back and brought me here to show me the error of my ways. I told them, that my _ways_ were not a fucking error. It was how I was meant to be and so they gave me one more chance. I fucked him. Then when he complained I sort of had another accident. Not really my fault. I was under a lot of pressure at that point, but not half as much as what happened next….

…and that will have to wait, because I've arrived now. My feet are on this slightly twinkly earth right in front of the steps leading up the side of this tall ancient stone keep and to the doors set about a third of the way up central to what I suppose is the front of the place.

It has a name; Ezekiel's Tower. Nice huh? They are all into giving things fancy names over here. There are one hundred stone steps up the side of the tower or keep whatever you want to call it and so I start now walking up them. I know there are that many I've counted them on my way down. Head first. More than once. I don't intend that sort of outcome to happen today. I fucking know they have Sam and Spencer in there and maybe others too, I don't know exactly what happened but Ambrose is going to hear the sharp side of my tongue today, and possibly the hardness of my fists and boots. Maybe they made a mistake letting me keep them. Step number fifty seven, I am more than half way there now and I can feel my hands are clenched in fists and I can feel that all too familiar feeling of adrenaline pumping through my system and someone really had better not try to stop me right now.

I know this is going to be a short visit back to the forest so on step seventy five I stop and turn and look out across the lake to the trees and suddenly they don't look quite as friendly any more. My desperate need to be there has passed. Now I just need to find out what the hell happened and why what I thought would happened didn't

Step number ninety four…five…six...I take two at a time…eight…and I'm at the top.

-o-o-o-

A sudden noise from behind the door; the sound of wind maybe? I'm not sure. Maybe I'm imagining it. I rock back again and give my head a nice smack on the door. The noise continues, but there are now sounds coming from other places and so I'm sure it's just in my mind. The alcohol taking effect again. My body giving up. My mind failing. It's OK though. I don't mind now. I just want it to all be over. I want to fall asleep and let it happen.

When the door suddenly swings open I am rocking back ready to smack my head again. I let out a surprised yelp and move my arms quickly behind me to stop me from falling back onto the bathroom floor.

It would have worked out fine. I would have put my hands there and then turned around. I would have crawled into the room and found water. I know I would have. It would have happened like that if there had been a floor for me to place my hands on, but there isn't. There is nothing there and as I fall backwards I try to see what is happening, but it's all too dark and happening too fast and I am falling back into nothingness.

* * *


	17. Chapter 17 Preparation

Preparation 

**a/n: this didn't go in the direction I expected. That's what happens when you let Floyd write his own bit.**

* * *

Where ever I am it's definitely not the spare bedroom.

I remember the screams. I think some of them might have been me. Some were Sam. I am sure of that, but some were from somewhere else. Inside my head.

Or was that my screams? I don't know.

Previously I had been kneeling on a soft carpet with Sam held close to me. I am still kneeling. I still have Sam, but he is lying across my lap on his back and I am supporting his head with my left arm. I can hear his heavy sleep laden breaths. I can feel he is warm against my legs. At least, for now, he is not dead.

This floor is sort of rubbery and it reminds me of something. I've been here before. What ever this place is, it is familiar, but I can't work out why. Everywhere is dark except for this little circle of light we are both in. I'm not wearing what I was earlier either. I have something tied around my waist. Sam is in a clout cloth of some kind. We seem to have been washed at some point between the screams and now too. There is just a slight crust of dried blood under the boy's nose. I seem clean. As far as I can tell. Carefully I reach my right hand over and touch Sam's face. 'Wake up.' I tell him softly. I don't want to talk too loudly. I don't really want to talk at all; it breaks this mysterious silence we are both in. He moans slightly and wriggles a bit on my lap but apart from that doesn't move. 'Sam.' I finger brush at his hair. 'You need to wake up.' This time I say my words a bit louder, but not by much. I didn't need to. He groans and opens his eyes and looks up at me. Maybe for about twenty seconds he lies there just looking at me. I can almost hear the cogs in his brain ticking over and working things out.

'Oh fuck!'

And Sam doesn't keep his voice down. He rolls off my lap and comes round to kneel in front of me; facing in my direction. 'You know this place?' I think I am whispering.

'Oh shit Aaron.' He reaches out and touches my knee with his pale hand. 'This isn't good. This is what I was trying to avoid. Oh bugger it.' Now his voice is quieter. 'Genetically I am perfect.' He tells me. 'But my "dad"…' and he emphasises the word with his fingers. '…is a complete fuckup. I don't believe he did this _again_!'

Now he moves slightly back from me and gets to his feet, and so I follow suit and stand too. I move slowly forward and stand close.

'We've been here before. You and I.' I tell him. Though I didn't really need to say it, I just wanted him really to know that I have some sort of a memory of it; just the atmosphere, the darkness, that lack of sound and that smell.

'Yes, yes, yes.' And he grabs my hand and squeezes it. 'And this time things are going to go a bit better I hope. At least dad's not here to mess things up again. Or Spencer.'

And I can see a frown on his face as he looks around him. 'Why would Spencer be here?' I need to know.

'Because it's the way things fucking well work. There is my dad and there is me, and then there is Spencer and you. There are four of us, but dad and Spencer aren't here.' And that frown deepens. 'I just hope he didn't do what I think he might have done. If he has then we really are well and truly fucked.'

-o-o-o-

I was falling.

It seemed like I had been falling for an eternity. I could see things rushing past me after a while and I felt strangely like Alice when she fell down the rabbit hole, except the things I was seeing were not really much like she saw. I managed after a while to turn myself onto my front and this way I could look down. Direction was also something I attempted to alter but I couldn't manage that. Speed though was possible. I could slow down and I could speed up again, but only to a small degree. I didn't really seem to be falling very fast. Looking down I can see nothing but darkness. Almost nothing but darkness. There are things moving; that I can tell. Other things or people (?) drifting down at different rates of velocity. Some rushed by me so fast I couldn't see what it was…but I could smell it; a very sweet syrupy smell and it was something I'd smelt before but I couldn't place it.

Now you might think that I would be freaking out over all of this, but for some reason I'm not. It feels all quite natural and normal to be freefalling into nothingness. How long has it taken? I don't know. Time doesn't seem to mean much where ever this is. I do know that I need to get to the bottom. I do know that down there, where the others are rushing to is something good. I can smell it. I can taste it at the back of my throat. Maybe this is one of those weird dreams, but I don't think so. Actually I know it's not. This is as real as the empty apartment I had spent so long in and I still don't have much control over anything but at least, strangely, I'm no longer thirsty. Well not for water, just now a nagging need to get to the bottom and get to the smell. It has to be good. I know it is good. I want to move faster. I need to get there quicker but this is as fast as I can get. Almost drifting; unlike some of the things dashing by me, but still faster than the things or people just floating there unmoving. I try to snag something as it goes past me, but I can't reach and so I resign myself to this speed and wrap my arms around my chest and wait.

Someone somewhere is singing.

Someone is crying.

And there is laughter.

So I carry on downwards wondering what I am going to find when I get there.

-o-o-o-

This is the main hallway. The great entrance hall of Ezekiel's Tower. This place is much larger inside than it is outside. Well for now it is. I've already said that distances don't mean a hell of a lot here and this is no exception. I'll give you a brief description while I'm waiting. The ceiling is about as high as the tower it self. It cuts right up through the centre of it. Around the edges are fancy stone stairways and balconies and door ways. This place is white. Everything in it is white. The walls are draped in fine white silks and the floor I am standing on is white marble type stuff. Smooth as ice. Straight ahead of me and opposite the door I just hurled my way through without announcement is a set of vast white doors. Double doors, both covered in carvings of, it seems, things with wings and to be honest with you these things with wings which are almost human looking are butt naked and my eyes are there taking in the images I've seen so many times before when the doors begin to open. I need to concentrate now. I need to stay calm.

He who comes out of that set of doors is a bit taller than me and is in some sort of odd white toga. His hair is dark, but not as dark as mine and his eyes are a glowing amber colour. I don't move.

Fine, to tell you the truth I am slightly concerned. I'd not go as far as to say worried, but there is concern drifting through my mind. I don't much like this bloke who goes by the name of FuckTard. Ok…that's not his name but it should be. This is Rugan. I don't like him. He doesn't much like me, so at least we are even on that score. He floats more than walks over towards me and just stands with a curl upon his lip looking at me.

'Well?' And his voice is so freaking loud I thought my ear drums were going to burst.

'Well what? I didn't come all this way to stand and talk to you.' I snap back at him. I'm not going to be intimidated but this wanker. Excuse my language, but he deserved it.

'You know the rules. Go away.' And he just stands there waiting for me to do something.

'Screw you Rugan, you know why I'm here and if you don't then you're not who I need to be talking to, so sort it or fuck off.'

But he is still standing there waiting for me to do something. I think that "something" is to leave.

'He's not here. Go away and bother someone else.'

And so I take a step towards him. 'Who's not here?' And now I have a snarl to my lip.

He takes a step closer to me to match. 'No one who needs you and no one who wants to talk to you and so you need to leave.'

Right so I know now that he knows what I want. I think. 'But he will be here soon. I can feel it. I can feel him.'

'Again, I will tell you that you can't just walk in here making demands of us. You know the rules, as I've already said. You need to..'

I cut him off. 'I fucking know what you need me to do!' I prod him with my finger. 'But I'm not in the mood to have a wash and fucking wear a frock right now. Just take me to someone I can talk to properly about this.'

The arse turns his back on me and starts to do his floaty thing again moving away. 'Return when you have sorted yourself out. I'm not going to talk to you further on this matter until you have. Come back without that attitude and smell and I might have something further to say to you.'

I don't like rules. I don't like rules that I have to keep anyway. It's fine setting them for someone else but I'm not going to be told what to do by this creature. So…

Maybe it was the wrong thing to do. Maybe this anger I am feeling inside forced me to do it, but I sort of pounce. I land on his back and I am tearing into the son of a bitch before he knows my feet have left the ground. It was stupid. It really wasn't what I had planned to do, but once I get that murderous rage in me, and I don't have a bottle of bleach and a bathroom to clean then there's not a lot I can do to stop myself.

I know I am screaming curses at him. I know I am biting and ripping at him with my fingernails but that is all I really know. I go into some crazy overdrive and my brain stops functioning like it usually does.

There are things grabbing me and there is a lot of noise and I can taste the blood and I can feel flesh ripping and I really should stop and actually I do, but not because I have any control over it, but because these other littler things have pulled me away. Dragging me towards the door I came in by.

'You can't do this!' I am screaming. Obviously they can because they are and I know I have really badly fucked things up now.

I count. Just because it is a habit of mine and yes, there are one hundred steps going back down. Not head first this time, but sort of on my side and back. I scrape and bounce my way back down to the bottom and lie there in this fucking twinkly dirt and just sigh. What's to say really? I very much doubt this lot will let me back in again. Not tomorrow. Probably not going to let me back in for a while yet and that's a long time when you have forever to realise that you messed up again because you cannot keep your temper under control.

I hear the door close.

And I just stay where I fell and try to work out what to do next. I don't much fancy going into the forest. Not now. Not now I've just tried to kill that bastard. It really wouldn't be a good idea. I can't stay here forever and so I have to think of who to see about this problem I have.

Daja comes to mind, but he's not here. He's someplace else. I need to get to that place. I should never have come here. It was stupid of me to think they'd understand, but Spencer will be here so I can't leave either. Slowly I get to my feet and I stand for a while looking up at the steps and then I look down at myself and I brush my fingers over my belt again and come to a decision. This place. This wonderful haven I have been trying to get back to for so fucking long is no longer where I belong. I don't know if I ever did belong here in the land of candy and skipping and twinkly dirt. I need to go down again and to do that I need to make my presence a bit more..err..what's the word I am searching for? A bit more obvious. The forest it is then.

So that is why I am walking over the bridge again…fancy fucking fairy bridge only takes two steps this time and then it's gone. That's my chance to go back there gone too. That's what you call burning your bridges. I run my fingers through my hair and look back at where I arrived at this place earlier. No point in going back that way. I need to find things to kill and things to fuck and things to eat. I need to get their attention.

-o-o-o-

I closed my eyes for a short while, but I don't want to fall asleep. I don't really want to miss this experience. I think briefly to myself that you're meant to see the light when you die, not this odd darkness, but maybe you only see light if you are not ready. Thinking about it now though I don't remember light when I was in the cabin with Hankel; there was just a pure nothingness. This then is different and now something is happening. I seem to be suddenly falling faster. Much faster. Too fast. My hair is whipping up behind me and I can feel a strange push from behind and pulling from below. This is no longer mysterious and calm. It has suddenly become terrifyingly fantastic. I want to scream. Not with fear though. I don't know what it is. I am dropping like a stone. I try quickly to do what I did before to slow myself down, but it's not working now. I am flying past things now; overtaking the things which had flown past me earlier.

And that smell. That delicious smell is getting closer. I reach out my hands below me waiting to reach the bottom and wondering what it is I am going to eventually hit.

Things are grabbing hold of me. I can't see what they are; it's just a blur of movement, but they are grabbing me and slowing me down. I think they are white. They look like white smudges just out of my line of sight. If I turn my head to see then they seem to move around a bit further. I can feel their hands on me. They are grabbing at my feet and hands now, and I can feel them in my hair and moving over my back. Small warm hands.

Whispering of voices, but I can't hear what they are saying, but now they are pulling at my white pyjamas I still have on and it seems no effort at all for them to rip them from me. I want to tell them to stop. I want to defend against them, but they have too tight a hold on me now. I need to tell them to get their hands off me but I don't seem to be able to talk. Too many hands; oily slippery hands sliding over my bare skin. The sweet smell I could smell so strongly has been replaced by the smell of the oils they are carefully wiping over my skin. A deep heavy smell. I want to kick them away from me. I need them to stop this, but it seems that the more I try to resist this the more hands arrive sliding over my skin. Every part of my body is carefully given this treatment. I can feel hands in places I don't much want these strange hands to be, and still I am falling.

-o-o-o-

I sit for a while just looking into the forest with the lake and tower behind me. If I bothered to look again, like I just did I would see that the whole place has disappeared into a thick grey fog. There should be a pathway from here leading across away from this bloody forest and to the dunes and the sea, but that place appears to have been deleted. They really do want me to get my arse back into the forest, and that is where I need to go. I know that. I have to go and let them know how pissed off I am about everything in the way I do best, but I don't know if I can really be arsed to do it now. Something has changed; inside me, something is different now. I hadn't noticed it before. My blind single mindedness had stopped me from grasping the situation properly, but sitting here I am beginning to think a bit more clearly.

Spencer.

He is the reason for all this recent crap. Before he came along everything was so much easier. I'd do as I was requested. I didn't fight the rules so much. I didn't fuck up as much. I'm not going to tell you that I was a nice person because I wasn't, but I was a better person maybe. Thinking purely and selfishly about myself only here, it was better. I had my princess. I had my toys and I had my fun and didn't have this continuous bloody pressure to keep someone close to me. I'm not sure how it all happened. I don't know why I fought this for so damned long. Yes he is beautiful. Yes he has a nice arse…and yes definitely he looks wondrous when I'm hurting him, but now I'm just fucking fed up with the whole bloody routine. Get him…fuck him….kill him…or someone else does and then come back asking for another chance. Why the hell can't I just walk away from him and let it be? Find another pretty boy to satisfy me. One who is more willing. I look again back at the fog and sigh. I know Spencer will be in that Tower soon. I know they will be training him and moving him on and letting him go back and I want to be a part of that, but I don't know why. Habit maybe. I'm just used to having him as my punch bag. I used to having to shout and slap him around because he's touched someone I don't like. I'm comfortable with loathing Agent Derek Morgan. I'm happy to let Emily spawn my brat. It's become so fucking boring though!

I get up and stretch and look into the forest and then start to walk. It's time to move on.

-o-o-o-

I walk holding Sam's hand for a while. I don't know where we are going but he seems to know what he is doing. When he finally lets go of my hand and says for me to wait for him I can see no reason not to. My head is pounding and so I kneel down and I wait. I have strange flashes of images going through my mind and it's distracting me from what I should be doing. Taking control. I feel like I've not slept for days, which might be the reason for the bad head. All the things which have happened recently seem to have become one big mess in my head. I can't separate them from each other. I put my hands to my face and rub at my eyes and then watch Sam as he walks just a short distance and then he stands deathly still. It looks like he is listening to something.

-o-o-o-

I admit I am a little bit confused. If I am here and Aaron is here then where is my dad and where is Spencer. I have a feeling something has gone wrong. I need to talk to someone and sort it out. Aaron doesn't belong here. I have to somehow get him back to where he should be. I am feeling like a jerk. I am actually feeling a bit like my dad and I don't like it too much. I tell him to wait for me and he kneels on the floor. He doesn't look too well. Poor old sod hasn't got a clue what's going on. Neither do I but I will do soon.

I wait. You always have to wait for them to come to you. Don't bother trying to go to them cos they get annoyed and pissy with you, so I wait. It doesn't take long. Someone is there and he is asking me what I want.

'I wanna know what the fuck is going on actually.' I don't have to talk too loudly. They can probably read in my mind to find out what it is I want.

'We are awaiting completion.' I am informed.

'Completion of what? Why have you brought me here? Where the fuck if Floyd and Spencer?'

I can see shapes moving around in the darkness. I can see the glinting of eyes looking at me. I don't like this. I really don't like what is going on.

'He has to decide what he wants. Once he has decided then we can move on.'

Ah hell I'm getting cross, but I need to keep calm. I've seen how getting cross with these people gets you nowhere but in deeper shit. 'Who the hell are you talking about?' I stand very still. I don't really want to move. I don't want to get too close to the things out there, which do appear to be getting closer. 'Move onto what and where? Why did you bring me here?'

'Sam, we are waiting for Floyd to cut the bond. Then you will be kept here and that person who came with you will be returned along with Spencer. We are waiting and you will have to wait too.' And now the thing I was talking to is backing off but the shadows are closing in.

I really fucking don't believe it. They want dad to give up Spencer?

It's not going to happen.

* * *


	18. Chapter 18 Moving On

Moving on

* * *

Things have changed since I was last a resident in this great forest. It used to be teaming with life. Animals and creatures I'm not even going to begin to describe to you and of course other beings like my self. It used to be a noisy orgiastic sort of place. Lots of naked things and a helluva lot to do to occupy my time. This though, this has changed. That's what happens when you don't go somewhere for millennia, when you return things are never the same.

This might be a problem though. My intention was to come raging in here full of lustful hate and rip and plough my way into anything and everything I came in contact with. This I can see isn't going to happen. Even that rage I had been feeling earlier has slipped away and I'm just feeling mildly pissed off and tired of it all. This place which used to be so full of life is dead. Even the trees don't seem too healthy or happy. There is a slight lazy breeze blowing and that is the only movement apart from me that there seems to be here. I think I should go back. I think I need to get over to that tower again and try to explain myself, but when I turn to go back I can see the endless forest behind me. They really don't want me here but they are not going to give me the chance to get a black mark by my name…ok another black mark, and get chucked back down again. This is just further proof that I cannot be bothered with this shit anymore. I've come to the end it would seem; at least for now anyway.

It is under a big old rotting tree that I sit myself down to think things over. I run fingers over my stomach and realise that the brand mark is still there. I can't remember it being there earlier. A small reminder from them and I thank you guys for this. I search in my pockets for a smoke or something to snort, but somewhere along the way everything has gone. Maybe that's good. Maybe that is why for now I have a clear head.

I lie down and curl up around myself and close my eyes. I need to sleep. I have to sleep and see how my head feels about all of this when I awaken. I know I have to do it, but hey, it's that damned lure. I don't know if I'm able to resist it.

Someone saying my name means that I open my eyes again and look in the direction of the sound. I can see a guy of sorts standing there looking at me.

'You don't have time to sleep. You need to tell us.' He has a strangely high pitched voice for a guy and I wonder for a second or two if it's just a real ugly chick with a beard.

'Leave me alone.' I say and close my eyes again and when he speaks again he is much closer to me. I can feel his breath on my bare skin.

'You have to decide now. You've had all the time you need.'

This time I pull myself over and prop myself up on my elbows and look at him. He is crouching down next to me.

'I need more time.' I am looking for that part of my which will rip his head off and piss down his neck, but I can't find it.

'That's one thing we have no more of. Time has run out. Tell us now and let things move on.'

I sigh and now I push up to sit. 'And what will happen to them when I tell you?'

'Depends on what you tell us doesn't it?' He moves a hand over and pushes stray strands of my hair off my face. 'And I'm not in the position to be able to tell you what happens. You just need to work it out for yourself Floyd. What do _you _think will happen?'

'Too many different outcomes are possible here. I can't even begin to guess and whatever I say I'm sure they will make sure I was wrong.' I slap his hand away from me.

'Then just tell me. If the outcome is not that important to you.'

I shake my head. 'What happens to me is very important. I don't give a fuck about anyone else.'

He nods at me and stands. 'Well I think you've made you thoughts on the matter quite clear. Thank you Floyd.' And he turns to leave.

I am on my feet and walking behind him. 'Wait up…just one fucking second. I didn't tell you.'

'You don't care what happens to the others. You don't care what happens to your beloved Spencer. That seems to be a decision to me.'

I go to make a grab for him. To pull him back; to let him know that wasn't what I really meant. 'Of course I bloody well care!' Don't I?

My hand drops again to my side and I stop following him.

When did I actually stop caring? When did I cross the point where I wanted him beyond all else to the point I am at now where I am too tired and worn out and pissed off to give a shit anymore. I don't know.

-o-o-o-

Sam suddenly turns and looks at me. I can see he doesn't look entirely happy. I stand up and start to walk towards him. When I get within touching distance he puts out a hand and places it on my chest.

'I sorta liked you.' He says to me.

'I like you too Sam. Do you know what's going on?' I know he has been talking to people, or things, but I don't know what they were talking about. He nods to me and removes his hand. 'I know what's going on. Sit; this is going to take a while.' And he kneels down in front of me grabbing my hand on the way down and pulling me to sit.

'Explain.' I say. My head is pounding now and I don't know if I'll be able to concentrate for much longer.

'Imagine a big chunky bracelet.' He says. 'One end of that bracelet has a clasp on it. That's dad. The other end has a ring on it and that's Spencer. Now all the time they are connected like that they are like one part of the same thing. Does that make sense? Well dad was stupid and he locked himself to that ring so that they could be joined. Then there is me. I'm like a charm on that bracelet. I'm part of that circle. Then I have connected to me, I have you.' I frown at him.

'I'm not sure I know what you're talking about Sam.'

He bites on his lip and shakes his head as though he is trying to think. 'Whatever happens, if something happens to dad, then he drags us all along with him.'

'Ah. And something has happened to your dad?'

Again a shake of the head. 'Not as such. He's unhooked himself from the ring. No actually he's done more than that. He's snapped it. He's broken that circle. This means that Spencer is no longer connected to dad, but we are still connected to Spencer. I think I'm confusing things aren't I?' He stops talking and is just staring at me.

'Carry on Sam; I'm trying to understand what you're saying.'

'It gets more complicated. Dad has now completely removed himself from that bracelet. There is just you and me and Spencer on it now, but that's no good cos the main link, dad, has gone and so it's no good anymore.'

'I see.'

'No you don't…cos I've not explained it all yet. Ambrose wanted Spencer and dad wouldn't give him up and so all that shit happened back in the spare bedroom. Dad was effectively killed off and as I am part of dad…I am too. I can't exist without him. Now obviously you know you are connected to me.'

'OK.' My head is pounding even harder now.

'So if you are connected to me then either you will stop existing when I do, or you will go back.'

'Stop existing?'

'By making the decision to break away, Floyd has eliminated me, but before I go I had to persuade them to let you go back.'

'And Spencer?'

'He is being cleansed as we speak. They will remove all traces of dad from him and Ambrose will lose him cos dad refused to hand him over. He did the right thing there. Now Aaron, wait here. I have to go. Maybe we'll meet again.' And he smiles at me.

Nothing is making any kind of sense at all. I sit and watch Sam stand and turn his back on me and walk slowly away. 'OK' he calls out. 'I'm ready.'

-o-o-o-

There was a celebration of some kind going on and being mid summer it meant windows and doors were open and music was playing. People laughing and drinking. Even though it was evening it was still hot and humid. He stood for a while in the shadows just looking at this single story building. It was big; lots of grounds, which in one way was good, but in another not so good.

Slowly and keeping to the darkness and out of sight of anyone who might appear he made his way to the side of this white painted home. Some windows were open, and this seemed to be what he was looking for. The main problem seemed to be that growing all around the edge of this place were rose bushes. He needed to avoid them, but finally he spotted the perfect place. The window was open just a small amount but there was gravel under it. It was to this window he quickly made his way now.

Crouching under the window he pulled a bit of paper from his pocket and a very small flashlight. The sort of thing you would attach to your key ring. He shone the light, which gave off a bluish tint over the paper and then looked up at the window. He nodded to himself and returned the things to his pocket. Now standing he pulled on a pair of latex gloves and slid his fingers around the edge of the window and pulled it open. Very nimbly he jumped up so he was standing on the window sill and then silently dropped into the room inside the house.

This room was in darkness but it didn't seem to bother him. A spare bedroom by what could be made out in the dark. Nothing to worry about. For a while he stood at the door listening. Making sure the way was clear. When he felt that the time was right he carefully and slowly opened the door and peered into the hallway. Now there was light, but luck was on his side and there was no one around. All of the revellers seemed to be near the front and to the other side of the building. Now he moved with speed. Almost at a run. Doors lined this corridor and he past them without even looking until he reached one near the end. Maybe four doors down. His gloved hand hovered over the handle for a few seconds and then he opened it and entered. The room was not in total darkness. There was a night light glowing in the corner of this small room. A white chest of drawers and a cot against the wall. It was to here that he went. For about two minutes he just stood and looked at the baby sleeping and then grabbed the blankets and wrapped them around the sleeping form and lifted her from the warmth of her bed.

'Hey you.' He said softly as he lifted the baby to his shoulder and rocked her gently. He didn't stay here long though. Quickly he walked with the baby back down the corridor and back through the door he had originally entered by. Closing all doors behind him he climbed carefully out of the window and keeping to the shadows walked back the way he had come. The child began to stir slightly so he stopped and rocked her gently making "shushing" sounds and then quickly disappeared through a line of trees and through a gap in the fence.

'You got her then?' A voice whispered. 'Is it her?'

He turned to look at a girl of about ten years old. Her hair long and blond and slightly curly hung down her back.

'Yes of course I have her, and I don't know yet. Quickly now, we can't hang around here.'

The trio walked a short distance down the quiet road and then crossed over to where there was a bike and side car parked up. The girl jumped in and the man carefully handed the baby over. 'Don't hurt her.'

'Why would I hurt her?' She looked at the man and frowned.

'Just don't is all OK?' He got on the bike and moved away into the warm summer night.

* * *

**a/n: to be continued**


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